ftow To ^^^ J^$ii'^ 

Wi>r»l\lu]^i;$^ Of Joy 

SYJ.W. «I]VIBSL(L(. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



telieif- , )\ 5 



UNITED S,TATES OF AMEEIOA. 



I 



HOW TO SEE JESUS, 



WITH 



FULNESS OF JOY AND PEACE. 



BY 

JAMES WILLIAM KIMBALL, 

AUTHOR OF " HEAVEN," " FRIENDLY WORDS WITH FELLOW PILGRIMS," 
** ENCOURAGEMEI 

TO THE BIBLE," ETC. 






n 




PUBLISHED BY 

HOWARD GANNETT, 

52 Bromfield Street, Boston. 

1880. 



,K5 



Copyright, 1880, 
By JAMES WILLIAM KIMBALL. 



INTRODUCTION. 



" Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds 
Were in her very look ; 
We read her face, as one who reads 
A true and holy book ; 

" Alone unto our Father's will 
One thought hath reconciled ; 
That He whose love excelleth ours 
Hath taken home His child." 

IN one of our New England towns dwelt a 
minister of Christ, whose one solicitude was, 
to preach the gospel to every member of his parish. 
His wife was like-minded. They were both walk- 
ing in all the commandments and ordinances of the 
Lord blameless, and were honored of God with 
great usefulness. 

Mrs. Emily T. G. was anxiously waiting for the 
promise of the Saviour : " He that loveth me shall 
be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and 
will manifest myself to him." 

A friend put into her hand three little tracts, 
frank utterances of a heart happy in the love of 
Jesus. These heart-revealings moved her to com- 



iV INTRODUCTION. 

municate with the writer, and led to a correspond- 
ence which in part is here presented. 

No apology is offered for the personalities per- 
mitted to remain. Said Rev. John Angell James, 
" If I have been of any considerable service to my 
people, it is owing very much to the habit of show- 
ing them my heart j of sharing with them the joys 
and sorrows with which God has fashioned my own 
life." We shall find apostolic precedent for this 
habit. 

This, then, is a heart offering " from the heart to 
the heart " of those who are waiting for the promised 
manifestation of the Lord Jesus. John xiv. 21. 



PREFACE TO NEW EDITION. 

Kind words from many parts of our own and 
from other lands, gratefully acknowledging help in 
seeing Jesus, and increase even to fulness of joy 
and peace in believing, impel me to renew the 
issue of this little book. 

21 Somerset Street, 

September i, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 

♦— 

PAGB 

I. Longing to see Jesus .... 7 

II. The Earnest of the Spirit . . 13 

III. Unbelief not Modesty .... 31 

IV. God's Love 35 

V. God's Promises 44 

VI. Thanksgiving 53 

VII. Guidance 59 

VIII. Trial of Faith 70 

IX. God's Minute Care ^^ 

X. Looking to Jesus 81 

XL Trials 88 

XII. Revived Faith 98 

XIII. Patient Waiting 105 

XIV. Faith's Power 109 

XV. Peaceful Love 119 

XVI. Real Prayer 129 

XVII. Barrenness . 133 

XVIII. Jesus' Tenderness 138 

XIX. Weighing Evidence 144 

XX. Faith's Scale 150 

XXI. Faith's Discipline 155 

XT 11. Frustrating Grace . . . . 161 



VI CONTENTS, 

XXIII. God's Part and Ours . . . .166 

XXIV. Perplexities . . . . . . 176 

XXV. Realizing Jesus 184 

XXVI. Completeness in Jesus . . . . 192 

XXVII. Lessons . . . . . . .197 

XXVIII. Aspiration ...... 204 

XXIX. Walking with God . . . . . 210 

XXX. Proving all Things . . . . 216 

XXXI. Hope deferred 222 

XXXII. Jesus only 229 

XXXIII. Feed my Lambs 234 

XXXIV. Hope 238 

XXXV. Coming Victory . . . . .243 

XXXVI. Peace 246 




HOW TO SEE JESUS 



I. 



LONGING TO SEE JESUS. 

** Long did I toil, and knew no earthly rest ; 

Far did I rove, and found no certain home ; 
At last I sought them in His sheltering breast 

Who opes His arms and bids the weary come ; 
With Him I found a home, a rest divine ; 
And I, since then, am His, and He is mine.** 

I THANK you heartily for your kind letter. 
It makes me very glad to know that Jesus ac- 
cepts my endeavor, and permits me to be helpful 
to any of His beloved ones. Your frank com- 
ments on the little Tracts encourage me to tell 
you something of the exceeding goodness of God 
which, led to the experience, and compelled my 
acknowledgment in the words of the Psalmist: 
" I delight to do Thy will, O my God ; yea. Thy 
law is within my heart. I have not hid Thy right- 
eousness within my heart ; I have declared Thy 
faithfulness and Thy salvation.'' It may be that 



! 



8 n'OW TO SEE JESUS. 

the dear Lord will use this declaration of His 
faithfulness to encourage and strengthen you. 

It was on the 25 th April, 1831, I first found God 
real. From that day He has permitted no inter- 
ruption to the friendship then so royally tendered j 
no cloud to come between my soul and Himself, 
the Sun of Righteousness. From my birth, and 
from my surroundings, it was a matter of course 
that I should receive line upon line, and precept 
upon precept; and yet, at nineteen, I had never 
once seen Jesus, nor the way to Him. I had been 
told in almost every form of utterance current in 
those days, that I ought to give my heart to Jesus. 
But, alas ! it was assumed by those who said it, 
that I knew what it was to give my heart to Him ; 
a most mistaken assumption. No doubt it was my 
own fault that I did not know. I wonder at my 
ignorance. But I wonder yet more, that those who 
really longed to lead inquiring souls to Jesus, 
should unconsciously leave me so utterly ignorant 
of the way. There was, however, this advantage 
in being so left ; I was compelled to appeal to 
Him alone, for instruction. I cried unto the Lord. 
I sought Him with my whole heart. I entreated 
Him to reveal Himself unto me, as the willing and 
able Saviour I could not but know Him to be. 
For a year or more He had been drawing me on to 
this serious, and now, at length, to this undivided 
search for Him. Now, truly. He bowed the heav- 
ens and came down. He put darkness under His 



LONGING TO SEE JESUS. 9 

feet. My darkness He scattered. At the bright- 
ness that was before Him, His thick clouds 
passed, and His presence stood confessed. 

As I came down from the place of prayer, "'' 
found myself talking with the Holy Ghost, as with 
an honored, revered, beloved, self-invited Guest, 
who so won upon my heart that I could not but en- 
treat Him not to leave me ; entreat Him to be my 
perpetual Guest. 

Well might the poet sing : — - 

" Like Morning, when her early breeze 
Breaks up the surface of the seas, 
That in their furrows dark with night, 
Her hand may sow the seeds of light, — 
Thy grace can send its breathings o'er 
The spirit dark and lost before ; 
And, freshening all its depths, prepare 
For truth divine to enter there." 

So I found it. And thus enriched, I hasten to 
assure you that a like bounteous grace awaits 
your riper need. 

No sooner had I thus received the promise of 
the Father, the indwelling Comforter, than I be- 
came vividly aware of strange differences in those 
who professed to be followers and servants of Je- 
sus. All assented to the truths which were to be 
believed about Him ; all made confession of their 
faith in Him, and in much the same words ; but to 
most. He did not seem to be a person, and a 
friend. It was as though they had heard of Him 



lO HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

by the hearing of the ear, but did not really knovt 
Him; did not conceive that He is knowable. I 
congratulate you that our dear Lord has filled you 
with the conception and the desire to know Him 
intimately. At the time I speak of, and long after, 
I was much perplexed over the question, What is 
this difference in Christians ? After a while our 
Lord's own words began to shed light upon it : 
" Many are called but few are chosen." Jesus 
said, '' Except ye.eat my flesh and drink my blood 
ye have no life in you;" they said, "This is an 
hard saying j who can hear it ? " Again it is said : 
" From that time many of His disciples went back 
and walked no more with Him.'' When Jesus was 
arrested by the soldiers, ^^then all the disciples 
forsook Him, and fled." 

To my apprehension it appears, from your own 
words, that you are of those who are both called 
and chosen of God; to be favored with His pecul- 
iar friendship. For this you hunger and thirst. 
You are not, therefore, a way-side hearer. The 
good seed has not fallen on stony ground, where 
there is not much depth of earth. Neither do I 
believe the cares of this world or the deceitfulness 
of riches choke the word. Your difficulty is of 
quite another kind. You are timid, and of a fear- 
ful heart. Here is a message of cheer for you : 
" Say to them that are of a fearful heart. Be strong, 
fear not, your God will come and save you." 

Here is a song made ready to your need by 
another sister in Christ : — 



LONGING TO SEE JESUS. II 

" I cannot think but God must know 
About the thing I long for so ; 
I know He is so good, so kind, 
I cannot think but He will find 
Some way to help, some way to show 
Me to the thing I long for so." 

Cherish the thought, dear friend. I am sure 
you will not be disappointed. You know Jesus 
says, " Blessed are they that hunger and thirst 
after righteousness.'' You are therefore blessed. 
You have received, in that hunger and thirst, a 
sure earnest of His promised manifestation of 
Himself to you. What if the vision tarry ? You 
have but to wait on the Lord. " He that shall 
come will come, and will not tarry." I cannot, 
with some, be swift to say, that all may come at 
once into full possession of that liberty and joy in 
Christ which you so earnestly desire. In the be- 
ginning of my new life I might have thought so. 
But, alas ! the evidence was soon forced upon me 
that the desire of many is neither deep nor strong. 
Jesus says of such, " they receive the word with 
joy, but have not root j they endure for a while, 
but when tribulation or persecution arise because 
of the word, they are offended." Assuredly all 
are invited, but all do not choose to come. They 
are not ready to serve the Lord with what costs 
them something. They are not prepared to honor 
Him with a self-consecration which may involve a 
risk. Of such as desire intimate association with 



12 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

Him, He inquires, Are ye able to drink of my cup, 
and to be baptized with my baptism ? They reply, 
We are able j but they know not what they speak ; 
they have not carefully weighed what may be im- 
plied in it. Consciously or unconsciously they 
shrink ; such shrinking is unbelief ; they dare not 
commit their way unto the Lord. They have not 
sufficiently studied what He has said and done 
and suffered in their behalf; and therefore it is 
that they have not been fully persuaded of His 
love. They gain no clear vision, because it is only 
with the mind they seek Him. The heart must be 
aroused. " Then ye shall seek me, and find me, 
when ye shall search for me with all your heart." 





II. 



THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT. 

" O Love Divine ! that stooped to share 
Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear, 
On Thee we cast each earthborn care, 
We smile at pain when Thou art near. 

" Though long the weary way we tread, 
And sorrow crown each lingering year, 
No path we shun, no darkness dread, 
Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near. 

** On Thee we fling our burdening woe, 
O Love Divine, forever dear ; 
Content to suffer while we know, 
Living or dying, Thou art near ! " 

DEAR Doctor T, H. Skinner, in his " Religion 
of the Bible," says : " There are three kinds 
of religion among those who call themselves Chris- 
tians. Of one kind it were well if the world were 
destitute. Excepting by the observance of religious 
rites and solemnities, it does not distinguish the 
lives of those who practice it from the lives of irre- 
ligibus men. It is the form of godliness without 
its power; the religion which would serve at the 
same time two masters, would join light and dark- 
ness, Christ and Belial, believers and unbelievers 
together. 



14 1^0 W TO SEE JESUS, 

" There is another kind of religion which has 
been called the middle path of Christianity. It is 
the religion manifestly of the generality of those 
who are considered Christians. It embraces, besides 
a profession and the observance of ordinances, a 
belief of the doctrines, and an irreprehensible out- 
ward conformity to the duties of the Gospel. But 
it falls short of the privileges of the Gospel j not 
including those lively hopes and anticipations, those 
holy joys and sorrows, that sensible intercourse and 
fellowship with God and Christ, that enrapturing 
communion with the Holy Spirit, that vivid and 
permanent earnest and assurance of Heaven, which 
the Gospel warrants and encourages in every be- 
liever. 

" A third kind of religion is that which does in- 
clude these peculiar experiences. We would desig- 
nate it Spiritual Religion." 

The Doctor goes on to state at some length what 
would satisfy Christians of this class j and espe- 
cially this : ** There must be a feeling of the Di- 
vine presence. If the light of God's countenance 
ceases at any time to shine upon the soul, the dark- 
ness which then covers it no outward prosperity 
can dispel ; its sorrows nothing can alleviate. No 
loveliness, no excellence remains, when the heart 
cannot taste the excellency of the knowledge of 
Christ." 

It is plain to me that He has called you into this 
class. You long for the vision of Christ ; for the 



THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT 1 5 

heart-sight and realization of Him as your present 
loving Lord. You know that some Christians are 
thus honored, and grieve that is not your happy ex- 
perience ; but you question if it is for you. I, on 
the other hand, am persuaded that a careful survey 
of the evidence Divinely provided must convince 
you that the happy experience you crave is freely 
tendered you. That your earnest desire for the 
loving and loved friendship of Jesus is a sure token 
of this. It is the earnest of the Spirit, 2 Cor. i. 
22, and V. 5 j Eph. i. 14. From the beginning God 
has sought the confidence and love of His creat- 
ures. He planted a garden in Eden, and in it He 
placed Adam. Out of the ground He made to 
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and 
good for food. He might have furnished man with 
simple instincts only, as He did the animals, and 
in so doing secured an unthinking and uninterested 
conformity to His own will. For our happiness, 
not less than for His own glory. He chose to create 
man in His own image; that is, with freedom of 
will ; with power to love and to hate, to perceive, 
reflect, compare, contrast, to choose, refuse, or to 
cooperate ; in short to live, in a measure more or 
less extended, on His own plane ; that is, in friend- 
ship, fellowship, and sympathy with God. 

The perception of God's design and desire sur- 
vives the disastrous result of Satan's plot to destroy 
all such Divine and human friendship. If Cain was 
a rebel, Abel was loyal After Abel came Enoch, 



1 6 BOW TO SEE JESUS. 

who walked with God, and won the sweet assur- 
ance that he pleased God. Need I remind you of 
Abraham, Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Daniel, Paul, 
John, and a glorious cloud of witnesses whose 
record attests the reality of this exalted fellowship ? 
To them God was entirely real and accessible. 
They knew and talked with Him as a friend. They 
aimed to please Him, and did not find Him hard 
to please. When they erred. He was very pitiful 
and of tender mercy. True these were exceptions 
to the multitude, but all were invited and com- 
manded. Those who refused, did so on their own 
election. In the infancy of the race God entered 
into covenant with Abraham, for Himself and for 
all believers. The law given at Sinai contained 
no revocation of that covenant. Nay, it demanded 
the embodiment in daily life of the faith on which 
that covenant was based. 

" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, soul, mind, and strength," presupposes the 
closest intimacy with God in Christ. Without this, 
compliance is simply and utterly impossible. 

I am sure, my dear friend, you must have re- 
marked the growing conviction that average " Chris- 
tian living" is unsatisfactory. It does not and 
cannot meet the need of earnest souls. The great 
majority of those who come to the table of our 
Lord own that Jesus is not realized as that per- 
sonal present friend He declares Himself to be. 
To such, on their own confession, "prayer seems 



THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT 1/ 

mere words in the air ; a feeble and disheartened 
groping in the dark." It is infinitely short of what 
Jesus promises: namely, ist. Forgiveness of sins, 
and freedom from condemnation, i John i. 7, 9 ; 
Rom. viii. i. 2d. Deliverance from the law. Rom. 
vi. 14, and viii. 2. 3d. Sonship. Rom. viii. 14-16. 
4th. Fellowship. Rom. viii. 17; i John i. 3. 5 th. 
Holiness. Luke i. 74, 75 ; Rom. vi. 19, 22; Heb. 
xii. 10. 6th. Oneness with Christ. Rom. vi. 4, 6^ 8 ; 
Rom. viii. 9 ; Gal. ii. 20. 7 th. His peace. John xiv. 
27. 8th. Indwelling and guidance of the Comforter. 
John xiv. 16, 17, 18, 26; John xvi. 13-15. 9th. 
Victory. John xi. 25, 26; i Cor. xv. 57. Here is 
the provision, Divinely made, that Christ may dwell 
in your heart by faith ; that you may comprehend 
His love, which passeth knowledge, and be filled 
with all the fullness of God. Eph. iii. 17-19. 

In some vague, purposeless, and unsatisfactory 
recognition, it is generally admitted that this ought 
to be the experience of all believers. It could not 
well be denied. The Word of God has too many 
and too precise commands and assurances to per- 
mit the denial. By a limited number it is positively 
affirmed to be the one Christian experience proper 
to all ; and recognized by the godly in every age. 
A continuous, stable, intelligent, and unwavering 
faith, is felt to be the only faith that honors God. 
Illustrations of such faith are not wanting in our 
times. President Edwards and his wife, Brainard, 
Martyn, Dr. Payson, Muller, Josiah Bissell, Dr. 



1 8 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

Wm. Goodell, Moody, and not a few less conspic- 
uous Christians, are well known as exemplifying 
this life of continuous, conscious communion and 
fellowship with our Lord. It is a life of supreme 
and unquestionable devotion to Christ and His 
Church ; an intelligent and total surrender and gift 
of one's self to Christ, not alone to do, but also to 
be, and to suffer, everything He pleases j and this 
in all the hours and activities of common every-day 
life, as completely as in the church, and on the 
Sabbath. It is a simple, intelligent, hearty, matter 
of fact reception of the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, 
on the simple word of the Lord Jesus, as a con- 
stant, permanent, and most loving guest, adviser, 
guide, and friend. It is a heart-reception, that 
knows no unreality, and requires no sensuous im- 
pression. The Holy Ghost once thus received, is 
Christ in you ; Christ made real ; a reality incom- 
parably transcending all material and all scientific 
illustration; a perennial fountain of joy; a deep 
well of peace; including the "persuasion that 
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall 
be able to separate you from the love of Gpd, which 
is in Christ Jesus your Lord." 

This life and experience is found in the children 
of God in every variety of circumstances ; in those' 
of few as well as in those of many talents ; the 
learned and the unlearned. To expect an equally 



THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT. 1 9 

intelligent and properly guarded account of their 
actual gain, from each of these, would therefore be 
unreasonable. We can sometimes accept and profit 
by a statement of facts when we can neither profit 
by nor accept an attempted interpretation of the 
facts. Thus, a most happy deliverance from spirit- 
ual bondage, actually received, might be very in- 
accurately reported, or mistaken for something 
more and other than the fact. Undoubtedly our 
Lord's oft repeated admonition, " If thou canst be- 
lieve j all things are possible to him that believeth ; " 
was designed to call attention to that one special 
impediment, ever in our way, unbelief. But there 
are other hindrances, which may not be ignored. 
Thus, for example : " Justice and judgment are the 
habitation of Thy home ; mercy and truth shall go 
before Thy face." The first of these characteristics 
of our Heavenly Father are as carefully to be re- 
membered as the other. And yet, dear friend, be- 
cause of the present impossibility of bringing your 
daily life at once into entire conformity with the 
Divine standard, to conclude that your Father can- 
not regard you as a beloved child, is grievously to 
misjudge Him. If this were so, every conscien- 
tious Christian might well despair. The Gospel is 
indeed the glorious Gospel of the blessed God for 
penitent sinners. Our beloved brother Paul says : 
" And the grace " — that is, the undeserved favor — 
" of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith 
and love which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faith- 



20 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

ful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ 
Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whoni 
I am chief." And so when a disciple of Jesus is 
enabled to receive his Lord as his Immanuel, his 
salvation as a present and complete salvation, and 
to find the yoke of Christ easy and his burden light, 
is it any wonder if he, unaccustomed to use lan- 
guage with metaphysical exa'Ctitude, should seem to 
overstate what he has received ? Let no statement 
of this kind dishearten you. Appeal from and con- 
cerning it, to your loving Lord and He will surely 
guide you ; for so He promises. 

So different is the free and joyous life of many 
a witness from the life he before groaned under, 
you cannot wonder if he hastens to conclude that 
" Christ is doing everything for him." For so in- 
deed- He is j though not in contravention of His 
own declaration that " He works in us to will and 
to do of His own good pleasure." 

But to some who cordially recognize a life in the 
very sunlight of the Divine love, as not an unprece- 
dented thing, it seems a question if there be any 
true and well-warranted Christian state which may 
properly be called the rest of faith ; that peace- 
ful and continuous assurance of Christ's intimate 
friendship and approving love, for which you sigh. 

Alas ! but too distinctly do I remember the gall 
and wormwood of an endless succession of abor- 
tive endeavors to live in sinless loyalty to Christ. 
Who can count the resolutions broken, or who por- 



THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT. 21 

tray the painful sense of shamelessness, amounting 
to audacity, in even presuming again to ask forgive- 
ness, with no assurance of doing better ? What but 
bitter waters could come of this ? And this came 
of halting faith ; lame for lack of realizing Jesus as 
the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world 
by the sacrifice of himself. Nevertheless, though 
missed by not a few, there is a peaceful, as well 
as a joyous, knowledge of God. The declaration, 
" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind 
is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee," 
is not the proclamation of a mere mathematical 
point, or of an equatorial line, whose existence may 
not be denied, but which cannot be actualized. It 
may not please God immediately to bestow so great 
a gift. Delay may be needed to free the believer 
from temptation to rob God, by assuming that his 
own right arm hath gotten him the victory. " What 
hast thou that thou didst not receive ? " may be an 
ever-present and ever-needed reminder, designed to 
preclude all arrogance and self conceit ; and it is 
not difficult to conceive of great advantage to be 
derived from schooling our strong natural prefer- 
ences into cheerful acquiescence in the will of God. 
Though forty years without a doubt of my son- 
ship, and with the realization of Christ's presence 
and of His tender love never once suspended, some- 
how I missed that being " careful for nothing," to 
which He summons us. Like yourself, I was self- 
condemned that I was not " kept in perfect peace." 



22 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

Like yourself, I had been taught,' with much pains- 
taking, the efficacy of Christ's atoning sacrifice. I 
knew that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth 
from all sin/' I had earnestly offered this full 
salvation to not a few, and yet, after all this, I had 
not myself fully appropriated it. 

If you ask, " How is this to be accounted for ? " 
I answer, I suspect the explanation to be, that I 
did not and could not at once receive the Word of 
God in utter simplicity. It came to me veiled and 
obscured in a cloud of human traditions and inter- 
pretations. Thus, when I read God's declaration 
of the efficacy of the blood of Jesus, that declara- 
tion was glossed with the suggestion. Take heed 
that you do not understand this literally, for though 
whatever the Lord says is true, in a general way, 
yet proper knowledge of yourself, and of your fail- 
ings, should and will forbid you to believe that He 
cleanses you from all unrighteousness. For gener- 
ations the prevailing teaching has been, that to be 
doubtful of our acceptance with God is on the whole 
safer, and less liable to mislead, than undoubting 
assurance. This is the verdict of average thought, 
belief, and experience. And on such experience 
doubtless it is as much as we have warrant to af- 
firm. Those who live only, or chiefly in fear, must 
needs challenge a love which casts out all fear. 
They frankly own the imperfection of their love ; it 
has perhaps not occurred to them to suspect that 
their fear may be not less imperfect, and therefore 



THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT 23 

equally unacceptable to God. All this befits a 
round of mere thought about religion and its re- 
quirements, discerning no " life with Christ in God." 
By the mouth of the Beloved Disciple, He says to 
us, " Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then 
have we confidence toward God." The intellect 
may condemn ; judgment and conscience may con- 
demn j because, tried before their tribunal, I am 
found a sinner against God, exceeding sinful. And 
yet, thanks be to God, I may love Him with all my 
heart, soul, mind, and strength; with a true and 
honest heart ; and so may you. I maybe loved by 
Him, most tenderly, and so may you, because so 
wondrous is the efficacy of the atoning sacrifice of 
Christ, that I am no longer under the law of Sinai. 
I have been taken into the grace of the Divine 
friendship, and so have you. Faulty as I know 
myself to be, my heart does not condemn me. I 
have confidence toward God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ. Both heart and mind appropriate 
the atonement as completely as the sunlight, air, and 
bread, as received and used for the life of the body. 
I am no more a stranger and foreigner, but a fellow 
citizen with the saints, and of the household of 
God. I begin to discern the mysterious fellowship 
which from the beginning of the world hath been 
hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. 
I am strengthened with might by His spirit in the 
inner man. Christ dwells in my heart by faith. 
I am rooted and grounded in love, and so enabled 



24 ffOW TO SEE yESUS. 

to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth^ 
and length, and depth, and height, and to know the 
love of Christ which passeth knowledge. 

This is a true account of the issues from an hon- 
est, earnest walking with God, the normal and 
promised victories resulting from persistent fight- 
ing the good fight of faith. Must we then conclude 
that those who miss these issues are neither hon- 
est or earnest } By no means. Many who are 
both honest and earnest have been cheated of 
their birthright. " It pleased the Father that in 
Christ should all fullness dwell ; " also " that we 
might be filled with all the fullness of God." 

Is not this Divine testimony corroborated by the 
facts of human life ? How is it in that friendship 
between man and man, which God has made the 
type of His own ? I am your friend. A very im- 
perfect friend^ and yet an honest friend. Is there 
any insuperable impediment to loving an honest 
friend, one who in mind and heart is devoted to 
your interests, because he is not perfect? 

My own judgment is, that some of those whom 
the Lord has made very happy and restful in Him, 
mistake in thinking that their fellow Christians 
universally, irrespective of natural gifts, irrespective 
of education and training, human and divine, may, 
if earnestly urged, instantaneously appropriate their 
proffered key, enter their door, and enjoy their 
happy relations to God. Nevertheless, there is for 
such as can and do rightly receive Christ a deliv- 



THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT, 25 

erance from bondage. For it is written, " As many 
as received Him, to them gave He power to become 
the sons of God.'' " These things have I spoken 
unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and 
that your joy might be full." " Peace I leave with 
you ; my peace I give unto you." He does not say 
that every Christian will accept what He so freely 
gives. He does not say that all who desire will do 
this. He does say, ^^ Blessed are they that hunger 
and thirst, for they shall be filled." 

No earnest, reverent Christian will, in express 
terms, question the Divine assurance : " Thou wilt 
keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
Thee." Yet, in effect, not a few do make void this 
grace of God. From their own experience, and by 
the prevailing testimony of their fellow-professors, 
they are persuaded that the Christian life is a con- 
tinuous personal race ; a wrestling against princi- 
palities and powers ; an unending struggle with the 
world, the flesh, and the devil \ a striving in the sel- 
dom, if ever, intermittent agony of personal combat, 
which permits no laying down of anxious solicitude 
for the result ; which endless struggling, disguise it 
as we may, is torment. Through fear of defeat, if 
not of death, such are all their lifetime subject to 
bondage. 

I might ask of those who thus mistakenly insist, 
Does this anxious solicitude comport with perfect 
peace ? Does it comport with the assurance that 
Jesus " took part of flesh and blood, that through 



26 now TO SEE yESUS, 

death He might destroy him that had the power of 
death, that is, the devil ; and deliver them who, 
through fear of death, were all their lifetime sub- 
ject to bondage ? " I might ask, which horn of the 
dilemma will you choose ? That there is no perfect 
peace, no adequate deliverance, no peace-pervad- 
ing, serene, uninterrupted heart-union with Jesus, 
this side of death ? that Jesus failed in his atoning 
mission ? or that our Lord mocks us with deceiving 
words He never intended to have a real meaning ? 
No doubt our day has its peculiar antagonisms 
to the exercise of simple faith. Each age in the 
world's history has had its own. But " an obsta- 
cle," as has been well said, " is a thing to be sur- 
mounted." Were it not so, our beloved brother 
Paul might be charged with uttering idle words, with 
tendering an unmeaning ascription, when he cried 
out, " Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ ; " and no less when 
he added, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be 
ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the 
work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your 
labor is not in vain in the Lord." If the victory is 
delayed, it is the part of loving confidence and 
trust in our Lord, to own that there must be ade- 
quate reasons, and to search diligently and patiently 
for them. It is not the part of faith, but of un- 
worthy, guilty unbelief, to assume that there is never 
in the Christian life a victory that raises the devoted 
child of God above a ceaseless fight over the self- 



THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT. 2J 

same ground. Will either of us venture to assert, 
that there are no fields in this great contest, which 
being fought and won, may thenceforth be possessed 
for Christ, requiring not to be fought again ? Does 
the true life in Christ record no permanent victo- 
ries ? Has our Lord no happy, joyous victors un- 
der His banner, or only one or two in a generation ? 
Is the new life, the risen life in Christ, only an 
endless chain of ever recurring temptation, sinning 
and repenting, in the self-same ruts ? Nay, more, 
and worse ; is Christ in us, not only over and over 
again, but always defeated ? 

Such surely is not the testimony of that great 
cloud of witnesses summoned to testify in the 
eleventh of Hebrews. Such is not the testimony of 
the Apostle Paul, of Peter, or of John. Such could 
not be the testimony of any in our own day who are 
followers of God as dear children ; who walk in 
love, as Christ also hath loved us. To such He 
says : " As the Father hath loved me, so have I 
loved you." Are these unmeaning words ? Do 
they permit you to affirm, Jesus will not give me the 
fullness of love, and of realization of His love, I 
crave ? No indeed ! 

But here is the solution : There is an indefi- 
nite amount of duty-service, up to which men are 
driven by the thunders of Sinai, and by the echoes 
of conscience, a service fitly responding to the 
temper and spirit of our times. Who is prepared 
with Paul and John for total consecration, and foi 



28 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

implicit and utter trust ? Who dare appeal to God 
to forbid and to exclude all glorying save in the 
cross of Christ ? Who courts crucifixion with 
Christ ? Who knows himself dead to the world, 
and hid with Christ in God ? That way of living 
is as free as at any former time. Alas ! the sacri- 
fice is ready for Mammon, for Moloch, for Bacchus, 
for Minerva, it may be j for all the gods of the 
heathen, and for any idol. Our daily papers do 
but swell the catalogue of victims at such shrines. 
But a living sacrifice on the altar of Christ chal- 
lenges belief. Ministers at His altar even are 
doubtful if there be in our day any veritable living 
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. They find the 
maimed, the halt, and the blind, that is, followers 
of Christ who confess that they are not following 
Him fully, who do not claim that they are even 
attempting a total consecration ; who deny the pos- 
sibility of faithful following, and permit the doubt 
of such to weigh against the testimony of Peter 
(2 Peter i. i-ii), of Paul (2 Tim. iv. 7, 8), and 
of John (i John i. 3, 7, 9). 

To such, our Lord's reply is : " Whosoever he 
be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he 
cannot be my disciple.'' There is a secret of the 
Lord. He does not reveal Himself to those who 
give Him but a partial trust. The disappointment 
of such is not to be taken as proof that Jesus will 
not manifest Himself to those who love Him and 
keep His words. To those who take Jesus at His 



THE EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT. 29 

word, the Comforter does come. In them He dwells. 
He shows them the things of God and of Christ, 
and leads them into all truth. His presence dis- 
solves all fears, swallows up all solicitudes, and 
is the earnest and foretaste of Heaven. Speak 
then to Jesus the language of love ; read, aye and 
shout to Him the 23d Psalm, the 34th, the 62d, 
the 103d, the 112th, and the 145th, and see to it 
that your heart fills, pervades, and overflows in 
these heartlife words. Throw your heart into these 
and into such like utterances a hundred times a 
day. 

Only believe, that much as you desire this most 
intimate, loving, peaceful, conscious friendship with 
our beloved Lord, He much more desires it ; and 
you will have it. What if He keeps you waiting 
for a time? Did He not test the Syrophenician 
woman? And was it not to exalt her to honor 
before the endless ages ? " It is good that a man 
should both hope and quietly w^ait for the salvation 
of the Lord ; " that is, wait in the quietness of lov- 
ing trust for this fullness of salvation. 

Faith fearlessly aflirms that Jesus has manifold 
and admirable reasons for divers dealings with the 
disciples who entreat to be admitted to His most 
intimate fellowship. 

" Lord, Thou wilt love me. Wilt Thou not ? 
Beshrew that not : 
It was my sin begot 



30 now TO SEE yESUS, 

That question first. Yes, Lord, Thou wilt : 

Thy blood was spilt 

To wash away my guilt. 

Lord, I will love Thee. Shall I not ? 

Beshrew that not.'* 





III. 

UNBELIEF NOT MODESTY. 

" Yield to the Lord, with simple heart, 
All that thou hast, and all thou art ; 
Renounce all strength but strength divine^ 
And peace shall be forever thine ; 
Behold the paths the saints have trod, 
The paths which led them home to God." 

I CANNOT quite feel satisfied to let you alone 
this morning. I feel about you as Goodwill, in 
Bunyan, felt about Christian. He wanted to lay 
hold on him and pull him within the gate, before 
the archers across the way could wound him with 
their sharp arrows. Naturally modest and reticent, 
you have unconsciously nursed the idea that it 
would be presumptuous in you promptly to believe, 
when you give yourself to Jesus, that He actually 
and warmly receives you. Satan does not spare to 
assail you with disheartening suggestions. Thus : 
" God never has been real to you ; He is not now j 
you cannot see Him, hear Him, nor touch Him. No 
man has seen Him ; no man can. Those who pre- 
tend it, as you well know, often give least evidence 
of it in their lives. Job did not know where to find 
Him ; though God himself told me, Job was a per- 



32 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

feet and upright man, one that feared God and es- 
chewed evil, and there was none like him. If God 
hid Himself from Job, why should He show Him- 
self to you ? " To all this your safest answer is : 
" Get thee behind me, Satan/' " When Thou saidst 
unto me, * Seek ye my face,' my heart said unto 
Thee : ' Thy face, Lord, will I seek.' Hide not Thy 
face from me. The pure in heart shall see God j 
for Thou hast said it. Lord, make me pure in heart, 
for I am fully purposed that I will see Thee." To 
this His answer ever is, *^ According to thy faith be 
it unto thee." It remains for you to speak to Him 
as to a real, a present, and a loving Friend ; to open 
your whole heart to Him. Take up His promises 
which warrant such speech with Him. Take one 
by one, and plead it. Insist with unshrinking per- 
tinacity, that you have His warrant for so doing, 
and that you never will cease pressing for this favor 
till He grants it. Has He ever forfeited His word ? 
Will He begin with you ? No ; for He abideth faith- 
ful. He cannot deny Himself. Take care to say 
only what you mean \ to use only the words which 
clearly express your meaning. Above all, see to it 
that what you say is your heart's utterance. " Trust 
in Him at all times, ye people, pour out your heart 
before Him." 

Now I must not speak pityingly of your holding 
back, nor for a moment consent to regard it as 
proper modesty. For, admitting as quite true all 
that you can allege of your undeserving and ill de- 



UNBELIEF NOT MODESTY, 33 

serving, I must demand of you, How dare you 
make that a pretext for discrediting the solemn, 
earnest, heart-moving asseveration of your Lord, 
that He will and does receive you ? This is your 
particular and preeminent sin, — this unbelief of his 
specific promises, — which you are to confess to 
God ; imploring Him to conquer what you find too 
strong for you. Hate this unbelief in God's love. 
You do not begin to realize how sinful and how 
hurtful it is. You do not conceive what an indig- 
nity it puts upon God. 

You, perhaps, know some poor, degraded, igno- 
rant person whom it is in your heart to benefit and 
elevate. You exert yourself to the utmost to do 
him good. Your reward is, that your good-will is 
declined, disbelieved, ignored. You are told, we 
will suppose, by the object of your kind endeavors, 
that he could not possibly do so immodest a thing 
as to believe that you mean your kindness for him. 
He prefers to believe that you intend kindness to 
mankind in general. How would you feel under 
such a repulse 1 Would the miscalled modesty of 
it mend the matter, or save your wounded feel- 
ings? 

You have a chronic habit of doubting : do you 
find anything good in it, anything lovely, or to be 
desired ? Hate it, spurn it, as the vilest thing 
you know ; and protest — 

" I will believe ! I now believe ! • 
I can hold out no more ; 
3 



34 ^OW TO SEE JESUS, 

I sink, by dying love compelled, 
And own Thee conqueror/' 

I had a call a year ago from a young lady who 
came to our city to get a school. I gave her a note 
to the chairman of the school committee; but 
there -was no vacancy. I said to her : Now I want 
you to promise me this ; that you will make a new, 
and a great deal more thorough gift of yourself to 
the Lord ; and that you will especially commit this 
matter of the school unqualifiedly to Him. Do 
that and He will give you a school, if it is best, in 
the best time. 

" She thought God helped those who helped 
themselves." 

So He does ; but there is no way in which you 
can so effectively help yourself as in doing just this. 
She promised ; and she did it ; and the Lord took 
up my pledge, and gave her a school at the end of 
a year, or less ; and gave her most profitable pre- 
paratory discipline in the mean time. '' If thou 
canst believe, all things are possible to him that 
believeth.'' Only give and commit all that yoil 
have, and are, and hope, and wish, and fear, to 
Him ; that is all. Only receive the Holy Ghost. 
Only offer Him sincerely and cordially the hospi- 
talities of your heart j prepare Him room, and He 
will dwell with you, and do all. 




IV. 



GOD'S LOVE. 



" Like a cradle rocking, rocking, 

Silent, peaceful, to and fro, 
Like a mother's sweet looks dropping 

On the little face below, 
Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, 

Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow ; 
Falls the light of God's face bending 

Down, and watching us below." 

WHEN I was converted, I hardly dared to go 
to sleep, lest I should lose ground. But 
then I bethought me — I ought rather to say, the 
Lord suggested — that I should rest in His love. 
And so I said to him : " Lord Jesus, I have fought 
till I can fight no longer ; I cannot keep myself ; let 
me lay my head upon Thy bosom.'' And He did. 
And I slept — oh, so sweetly ! I praised Him in my 
dreams, and waked with a song of praise on my 
lips and in my heart. When I went to my chamber 
to pray, I said. Now if my father were in the ad- 
joining room, though I could not see him for the 
partition between us, I could know him to be there, 
and by raising my voice I could make him hear 
me. Well Jesus is here. I cannot see Him through 
5his veil of flesh, but I know absolutely that He is 



36 ffOW TO SEE JESUS. 

here. I have no need to raise my voice, for He can 
hear the lowest whisper. Dear Jesus, I speak to 
Thee. I will tell Thee all my heart. Holy Spirit, 
guide me, that I may speak what thou wouldst have 
me. Make intercession within me. I entreat that 
my prayer may be Thy prayer. And then I turned 
to my Heavenly Father and asked Him if he would 
redeem the pledge of His Son. John xiv. 13, 14. I 
never have any confusion about Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost. It is all just as I would have it. It 
makes our position so strong ; our argument so ir- 
resistible. The Spirit originates the prayer ; the 
blessed Saviour takes it up and advocates it ; the 
Father gladly grants what is so acceptably pre- 
sented. I often tell Him, He cannot say nay to 
His only begotten and well beloved Son, who is 
also my well beloved Lord. 

You say, " If I could only learn to connect God 
with everything I hear and see." 

Cherish that wish, and He will establish the con- 
nection for you. " If a man love me," said Jesus, 
" he will keep my words ; and my Father will love 
him; and we will come unto him, and make our 
abode with him." Accustom yourself to the recog- 
nition of His having actually done that for you. 
The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, dwells with you, 
and in you. Do not ask, " How can these things 
be ? " It is true because Jesus declared it should 
be so. Be sure that from the moment of your 
conversion, the Holy Ghost charged Himself with 



GOD'S LOVE, 35r 

jrour education. And He makes no mistakes. He 
knows to a day, to an hour, when to put us upon 
this, that, and the other study. He knows what 
text books I need and provides them for me. I 
had Fenelon, for example, put into my hands at the 
fitting moment, so obviously, that a hand reached 
down from heaven could not more surely have veri- 
fied His interposition. Of course you have your 
personal cares, your family cares, your peculiar 
cares as a pastor's wife. Take each and every one 
of them from the Lord. Take a headache from 
Him; take broken china from Him; take rainy 
Mondays from Him ; take rainy church-meeting- 
nights from Him. It is wonderful how the habit 
of taking everything from Him, turns everything 
into a blessing. All things do work together for 
good to them that love God. I have proved it true 
thousands of times. 

How natural is your expression, " I thought I 
was to be blamed because I was where I was. I 
have felt that if I had done differently, been more 
in earnest, had had more faith, prayed more, I 
should have been a more useful Christian." 

All of which is true enough, in a way, but if 
overlooks what was to have secured all this to you ; 
namely, just that overlooked, unappreciated, simple 
faith in your Father, Redeemer, Sanctifier. 

I have never been more deeply touched than in 
the discovery of our Lord's using one of my faults 
to teach me the blessed lesson of humility. Now I 



38 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

was culpable, for my fault, of course ; but, so far as 
I am able to judge, nothing in the world could have 
been so useful to me as being left to commit the 
fault, and to see my Lord using it to impart His 
lesson. Sometimes it has been an error too con- 
temptibly little to be worth mentioning ; and yet, 
so wonderful is the Divine alchemy, that that little, 
pitiful, nameless fault, in the hands of the infinitely 
wise and infinitely loving One, has been of a heal- 
ing efficacy never to be forgotten. Consider that 
our God takes us just as we are, to make us just 
what He would have us be. Were this not so, our 
sufficiency would not be of God. 2 Cor. iii. 5. 
Our redemption from sin would not be wholly His 
work. Consider, if God were to make no use of 
our faults, for the disciplining and development of 
our souls, how large a part of all we have and are 
would be as it were without His province. Now 
you have only to remind yourself of Jesus' own 
gracious assurance, " I came not to call the right- 
eous but sinners to repentance,'' to feel sure that 
his foresight and providence, all through the days of 
our impenitence even, were laying the foundation 
for the polished shaft He means to set up in the 
New Jerusalem. Is it not glorious to discern that 
even sin is so completely under the control of our 
Almighty Friend, that He can, not only limit its 
scope, but absolutely overrule it, so as that we 
shall be more capable of appreciating and of com- 
mending His love than if we had never sinned ? 



GOD'S LOVE, 39 

If this seems inadmissible, I leave it for those to 
settle who can show a better account of the matter. 
I fall back upon the unquestionable affirmation, God 
does, by the discipline of trials, brought upon us by 
our sins, qualify us to be helpful to sinners, as we 
could be qualified in no other way, so far as mind of 
man can see. You, at any rate, can " go on quietly 
to the end of your days," assured that God has 
so overruled your sins as that by the sin and the 
discipline, you have been fitted to pity, save, and 
build up in the faith those who have in like manner 
sinned. Suppose you had never sinned, had never 
been forgiven and rescued from the sins and their 
consequences ; is it apparent how you could be 
touched with the feeling of the infirmities of those 
whom you are commissioned to save ? 

Your fear to apply endearing epithets to Jesus 
reminds me, comparing great things with small, of 
the boy who was not to go into the water until he 
had learned to swim. You starve your heart by 
withholding its proper food, and then wonder that 
it aches with hollow hunger. There never was a 
truer maxim than that familiarly used by the chil- 
dren : " Be thankful for little ; that is the way to get 
more." You are surely sensible that Jesus has 
done something for you. Can you conceive of its 
being otherwise than agreeable to Him, that you 
should say, " Dear Jesus, I thank thee ? " And 
when you have said that a few times it will sound 
\o sweetly in your own ear, and so win upon you 



40 now TO SEE yESUS. 

with its sweetness, that before you are well aware 
you will find yourself whispering, " Sweet Jesus, 
precious Jesus, beloved Saviour, light of my eyes, 
joy of my heart, comfort of my soul ! " Be not 
faithless but believing. 

"If you had allowed yourself mojre freedom of 
language towards Him, perhaps " — 

No, no, no ! There is no perhaps about it. 
You must learn to blot out that word, along with 
the word " discouraged." " If a man love me, he 
will keep my words," etc. You have kept His 
words. 

" Not perfectly." 

No, not perfectly. Jesus did not say "per- 
fectly." You have kept them just as He knew you 
would keep them, when He uttered those words. 
And His Father, my Father, your Father, does love 
you, and has made His abode with you. And you 
must not think it is modest in you to doubt it. It 
is something not so innocent as modesty ; it is 
unbelief. Imagine some other person coming to 
you, the pastor's wife, and telling her story ; just 
your own story, word for word. Would you send 
her away uncomforted because she was only a 
penitent sinner ? Because she had not loved per- 
fectly ? 

I am glad you have abjured an endless round of 
self-bemoaning confessions. We are bound to get 
forgiveness, as well as bound to ask it. We are 
bound to believe i John i. 9. In regard to not 



GOD'S LOVE, 41 

feeling your sins as committed against God ; that 
goes along with the habit you deplore, of not con- 
necting everything with God. Establish that habit 
and the other will follow inevitably. 

I did know when I proposed that you should 
refrain from petition and confine yourself for a 
week to thanksgiving, that you would think it very 
hard. And why ? I once felt very much the same. 
It seemed to me that I was so great a sinner, and 
so weak withal, that it would never do to stop pray- 
ing for myself, lest I should be swept right away 
from my new found Friend. I found out that this 
was pure unbelief ; want of confidence in my Lord j 
and not that alone, but a mistaken idea that I was 
keeping myself. I wished you to make the same 
discovery. Therefore it was I proposed to you 
to ask no petitions for yourself, but keep to praise 
for a week. " Underneath " you, my dear friend, 
"are the everlasting arms." And you need have 
no fear that Jesus will withdraw them. Have you 
forgotten Isaiah xlix. 15 ? He will never, never, 
never leave thee nor forsake thee. I was talking 
yesterday with Rev. Dr. W. of the views of a 
mutual friend who makes growing in grace iden- 
tical with a growing agony in prayer, and we 
agreed that the true place for agony is in coming 
into right relations with God ; for example, in try- 
ing (according to Col. i. 10) to please God in all 
things ; in agonizing endeavors to put away all that 
I have reason to think may be displeasing to Him. 



42 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

But having adopted the plan of pleasing Him in all 
things as the one aim of my life, then I am set free 
from agony, as the rule ; " the law of the spirit of 
life in Christ Jesus hath set me free from the law of 
sin and death ; " and I may serenely rejoice in the 
contemplation of His attributes ; or I may engage in 
any benevolent endeavor no less calmly ; or I may 
turn from prayer to praise securely, knowing His 
own assurance, that " Whoso offereth praise glori- 
fieth God." Make the case your own, now. Sup- 
pose you had a child so grateful to you for all your 
kindness, as to be quite drawn off from all thought 
of its wants ; forgetful, even, for the time, how 
great its ignorance, and how many its faults. 
Think you you could leave that child while thus 
oblivious, and from such a cause, to come to any 
grief? One of your closing remarks touches me 
deeply. You say, ** You are better acquainted with 
the Master than I am ; won't you ask Him to keep 
me from growing careless and indifferent again ? " 
Why, my beloved sister, how little you do Him jus- 
tice. I have indeed already prayed for you with 
all the earnestness of my soul. But who prompted 
me so to pray for you ? The Master Himself. 
And yet you want me to stir Him up to love and 
care for you. O thou of little faith ! Do you think 
you know what a tender mother's love for her in- 
fant is ? I have no doubt you do. But that is as 
nothing in comparison with His love for thee. But 
I am not impatient with you ; I have good, blessed, 



GOD'S LOVE, 43 

glorious hopes for you. You are going to become 
strong in the Lord. You will never " become care- 
less and indifferent again.'' Indeed, those words 
have not expressed the truth about you. You were 
not careless, but despondent. You intermitted ex- 
ertion, because, not having right ideas of the way, 
you were hopeless. But now you are beginning to 
know the way, you will find it so alluring, I do not 
think you could be tempted to turn aside from it. 
Only renew the consecration of yourself to Jesus, 
very frequently, and very heartily, and you will 
have no occasion to "deplore the temptations of 
the world," as we hear so many do. You will be 
so filled and satisfied with the company of Jesus 
that you could no more go back to the world than 
you could go back to the toys of your babyhood. 
Let me animate you with the assurance that our 
Lord is well pleased to have you cherish great ex- 
pectations from His munificence. You never can 
exceed — nay, you never can begin to imagine — 
all He is willing and exceedingly desirous to do for 
you : " Behold I have graven thee upon the palms 
of my hands." Do believe His love. I assure you 
from experience a thousand times renewed, it is 
ever enduring, infinitely manifold, and always seek- 
ing you. Do not say, or think, with the Assyrian 
lord : " If the Lord should make windows in 
Heaven, then might this thing be." The windows 
are already made, and open. 




GOD'S PROMISES. 

** Then my soul, in every strait, 
To thy Father come, and wait; 
He will answer every prayer, 
God is present everywhere." 

YOU ask, How can I know that I do get forgive- 
ness ? 
I answer: In 1833 our Father — yours and 
mine — put into my hands a little book of Rob- 
ert Philip, entitled, " Communion with God." In 
it is a chapter, " The Promises of God to the 
Prayerful, the Real Answers to Prayer.'* This idea 
was then new to me. He enabled me to embrace 
it. I believe He will enable you to do the same. 
It is thus Jesus is seen ; thus He manifests Him- 
self j not to the eye, the ear, not to the mind even, 
so much as to the heart. No eye can compare with 
the heart's eye. You know how it is between thee 
and me. If you have my promise of something to 
be done for you, suppose next Tuesday, your faith 
receives that thing as sure. You have your Father's 
promise, " If we confess our sins, He is faithful and 
just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all 
unrighteousness." Is not this promise absolute? 



GOD'S PROMISES. 45 

You reply : " Ah, but it is qualified by my con- 
fessing. And how can I be sure that my confes- 
sion comes within God's meaning ? '' 

Do you not remember that it was agreed between 
us, that we were to stop in our inquiries at the mar- 
gin of consciousness ? There is a limit to all justifi- 
able doubting. If, after careful, thoughtful self-ex- 
amination, it appears to you that you are sincerely 
sorry for your sin, then you are no longer at liberty 
to doubt, that as it appears to you, so it really is ; in 
other words, you are sorry for your sin. You con- 
fess it sincerely ; your confession is the confession 
implied and demanded by our Lord. There re- 
mains, therefore, only that you believe, entirely be- 
lieve that He does forgive and cleanse you from all 
unrighteousness. 

Observe this is not " working yourself up " to 
believe ; " working yourself up " to a mysterious 
and equivocal " feeling." It is only an intelligent, 
earnest demand of a reasoning, believing soul, upon 
itself, to honor God by believing Him. Is that 
clear ? If I had given you assurance that I would 
do you some great favor, would it be fanaticism, 
or any working upon the imagination (while think- 
ing, ** What Mr. K, has promised is too good to 
believe ! " ), for you to go and get my letter, say- 
ing within yourself, " Let me see ; let me care- 
fully read over just what he did say '^ ? And when 
you had thus carefully re-read, would you not be 
saying, " Why, yes, he surely does say that, just 



46 BOW TO SEE JESUS, 

that, and I may rejoice in the certainty ; it is all 
so"? 

I think it very likely it was Satan that said to 
you, " You don't know anything of such a religion 
as this." Or it may have been the natural reason- 
ing of a heart perverted by sin. It is always dif- 
ficult, not to say impossible, to apportion the blame 
due to Satan and to ourselves. But, without intend- 
ing improperly to lessen your culpability, I may 
say, your feeble piety may and must be referred in 
part to the atmosphere into which you were born. 
Do you know the memoir of James Brainerd Taylor ? 
Had you been a member of his family, or had you 
been one of his Bible class, when he was study- 
ing in New Haven, it might and probably would 
have made a very great difference. In the begin- 
ing we are greatly dependent upon the piety of 
others. But you are not to make the vehemence 
of " Orient's " experience a model for yourself, nor 
a standard by which to condemn your own; for 
this, among other reasons : that she was to live but 
two years after her conversion ; and our Lord saw 
fit to crowd a life's work into that brief space. I 
would not, if I might, aim to have you just like 
her. Your work is different. Let us accept the 
wholesome stimulus which such a seraphic life in- 
spires, but do not let us pervert it into a dis- 
couragement. A race-horse would not be as useful 
in the furrows of common life as an animal of more 
moderate movement. I cannot have you apply 



GOD'S PROMISES, 47 

to yourself such language as you use. It is in- 
applicable. It is not true that you intentionally 
" deceive any one." You " desire to lead a Chris- 
tian life.'' In the beginning of my religious life it 
troubled me greatly when I found no glow of love, 
no depth of sorrow, etc., etc., — just what you charge 
upon yourself. At last it occurred to me to ask, 
what is in fact the true test of the reality of any 
sentiment. How much feeling must one have, in 
order to be sure that he has the right feeling? 
And the Lord made me see that the feeling which 
secured appropriate action, was right both in kind 
and in degree. Since then I have often illustrated 
it thus : Suppose I w^ere to become a member of 
your family. There are opportunities every day, 
every hour in the day, to act the part of a true 
friend ; ten thousand little minute opportunities of 
being swayed by love to you. No great thing to 
be done ; no demand for vehement feeling, or 
emotion of any kind ; nothing to arrest the attention 
of others, only that often unconscious regulating of 
words, tones, and countenance by a loving regard 
for your happiness. Now shall it be alleged in dis- 
paragement of my love that it has evinced itself in 
no extraordinary deeds ? in no surpassing emotion .? 
If I have grieved you, how much feeling must I 
have before I make my confession and entreat your 
forgiveness ? Is not that a suitable and adequate 
amount which, instantly upon my becoming con- 
scious that I have so pained you, leads me frankly 



48 now TO SEE JESUS. 

and honestly to own my fault and ask forgiveness ? 
And is there one rule for our conduct towards man, 
and another towards Jesus ? Can you see a fitness 
as towards man, and ignore such fitness as towards 
Jesus ? 

Do not weigh and measure your feelings, but 
do simply and ingenuously what seems to you 
right. Often say, " Dear Lord Jesus, I am very 
sinful, and very ignorant, but I mean to please 
Thee." You are just now realizing more vividly 
than usual how much "all the heart, soul, mind, 
and strength " means. And seeing how far short 
of that you have been willing to stop, you are 
tempted to condemn the love you have really borne 
your Lord, as naught. Now that is neither wise nor 
true. Moreover, it is ungrateful, for it refuses to 
recognize what He has actually done for you ; and 
it would stop all praise. While praying last night, 
I thought of you. I felt so deeply the need of 
holiness, I realized anew your difficulty and mine, 
of stopping supplication in order to praise. But I 
reminded myself, as I now remind you, that He has 
done great things for us ; and that we must and 
will praise Him. 

If you are not careful, Satan will worry you into 
a fever of anxiety because there is so much to be 
done, — so much lost time to be made up. Many 
years ago, when the same insatiable desires were 
upon me that have laid hold on you, I wrote to Dn 
Skinner for advice, and I must hand over to you 



GOD'S PROMISES, 49 

his short prescription : " Mem. Restlessness is not 
holiness." 

Quiet yourself in the Lord. Often recall to mind, 
that the most you have to do is to cast yourself on 
Him. He is really to do all. You are to hunger 
and thirst. You are doing so, and you are blessed 
in so doing. But you are to believe in His love, 
and to rest in His love. The yoke of Christ is easy, 
and His burden is light ; and you have no right to 
make it oppressive, even to yourself. It is a great 
thing, a very great thing, to talk of Jesus as you are 
now sighing to do. I am only just beginning, as it 
seems to me, to talk of Him with any degree of 
facility. I have indeed all these years been talk- 
ing of Him, and in some sort to Him, but so utterly 
short of what should have been ! Such an absence 
of that heart-gushing tenderness, that fullness of ap- 
preciation which comes so promptly for a human 
friend ! We will encourage one another, and we 
will not despise the day of small things, but be 
willing and thankful to increase from very small 
beginnings. The dear Lord will give us time 
enough to do what He has for us to do, and to be- 
come what He intends we shall become ; therefore 
do not allow the Adversary, or your own impatience, 
to goad you into a fever. I have seen the evil of 
this. Worry comes of unbelief in Jesus and His un- 
ceasing care of us. Remember His assurance : 
" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is 
stayed on Thee ; because he trusteth in Thee/' As 
4 



50 irow TO SEE yEsus. 

I read on in your letter, I see that Satan is buffet- 
ing you. No wonder ! he cannot bear to have you to 
take this new start. He would like to sift you as 
wheat. But hear His gracious assurance, who says, 
" I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." 
His prayers are ever heard, and your faith will 
not fail. 

You revive the conviction that the answer you 
desire can be given only to faith. Some one has 
said that a good book is not a work, but a growth. 
The same may be said, and truly, of faith. We 
have something to do with it, just as the farmer has 
much to do with preparing his field. But when he 
has done all he can do, God only can quicken the 
seed sown into life. The analogy here is, that, to 
the best of your ability, you separate yourself from 
all entanglements. You give your ear and your 
mind, as far as you can, to His Word ; but only the 
Holy Ghost, the Comforter, can quicken it so that 
it shall come to you as the very word and love 
of Jesus, rooting itself in your heart, and growing 
vigorously. You know how it is when we love very 
dearly, and the love is fully reciprocated ; our be- 
loved one can do nothing, but what discovers love, 
let it look as it may to others. Only let it be thus 
between your soul and Jesus, and let Him send 
what He will, in answer to your prayers, it will 
come full charged and overflowing with His love to 
you. 

A word about sorrow for the past. How much 



GOD'S PROMISES. 5 1 

sorrow is most suitable ? Not so much as to carry 
you to the verge of despondency. Thither your 
last letter seemed to show you tending. Even a 
right exercise of mind may be turned to an evil, 
just by pressing it to an extreme. This is a com- 
mon device of Satan. To look at your sinfulness 
long enough to despair of salvation by works, and 
to feel the need of Jesus, is well. But one clear 
sight of His forgiving love is more potent for good 
than a thousand sights of your sinfulness. I pro- 
test it is not true that you are nothing else but sin. 
Remember His own testimony : " So God made man 
in His own image ; " also that Jesus ransomed you 
with His own life, and washed you in His blood j 
and for aught you can show. He may have chosen 
you to be a vessel of mercy to thousands. 

Do not let any persuasion turn you from the use 
of endearing epithets applied to Jesus. Strange, 
passing strange, that any one can be so blinded as 
to believe that while the language of truest and ten- 
derest affection may and ought to be lavished on 
parents, brothers and sisters, husband and wife, 
piety and propriety alike forbid that He who de- 
mands our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, 
should be accosted with anything more tender and 
loving than the stilted and frigid language of courtly 
ceremony. My answer to all this is, Jesus is the 
chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely ; 
He is dear Jesus, sweet Jesus, precious Jesus, light 
of my eyes, joy of my heart, crown of my life. 



52 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

Get thee behind me, Satan ! Away with your 
miserable croakings ; down to your own dark and 
loveless den ! 

• " Lord of all being : throned afar, 
Thy glory flames from sun and star ; 
Centre and soul of every sphere, 
Yet to each loving heart how near ! 

" Sun of our life, Thy quickening ray 
Sheds on our path the glow of day ; 
Star of our hope, Thy softened light 
Cheers the long watches of the night. 

" Our midnight is Thy smile withdrawn ; 
Our noontide is Thy gracious dawn ; 
Our rainbow arch Thy mercy's sign ; 
All save the clouds of sin are Thine ! " 





VI. 

THANKSGIVING. 

** Good tidings every day, 

God's messengers ride fast. 
We do not hear one half they say 
There is such noise on the highway 

Where we must wait while they ride past. 

" Their banners blaze and shine 
With Jesus Christ's dear name 

And story ; how by God's design 

He saves us in His love divine, 
And lifts us from our sin and shame." 

THANKSGIVING DAY. — My heart is so full 
of joy and thanks this morning that it must 
have leave to overflow. If you could have looked 
in upon me half an hour ago, you might have 
thought me delirious, but I was never more ra- 
tional. I was leaping for joy ; joy for what our 
Lord has done for our nation, and for the indica- 
tions of what He intends to do. Among my con- 
scious occasions for overflowing thanks and praise 
to my dear, my precious, my honored, adored, re- 
vered Father, was His grace in permitting me to 
care for your spiritual weal ; especially in permitting 
my attempts to show you how to see Jesus. I went 
to bed at midnight praying earnestly that He would 



54 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

crown you with every blessing, and awoke this 
morning full of happiness in the assurance that He 
will do so. I am sure of it. I turned to my favorite 
145 th Psalm, which seems ever to offer itself as the 
peculiar medium for the expression of a full heart, 
and read it, almost shouting with exultation. Then 
I turned to Colossians i. and renewed for you, and 
for myself, the prayer suggested in the ninth, tenth, 
and eleventh verses. 

Indeed He is good, and " no good thing will He 
withhold from them who walk uprightly," — which 
means, those who in all their lives aim to please 
Him. What a precious assurance is that in Psalm 
cxviii. 6, " The Lord is on my side ; I will not fear." 
Why should we not exclaim, " I love the Lord, be- 
cause He hath heard my voice and my supplication : 
Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, there- 
fore will I call upon Him as long as I live " } 

You ask me not to be disappointed that you can- 
not say that the contest is over, and the victory won, 
and that a new light has dawned upon you. 

So long as you hunger and thirst, none of these 
things move me. Your successful attempt to find 
in John xvii. our Lord's sweet utterances in your 
behalf, is an earnest of what He will do for you. 
When you have time to read the xiv., xv., and xvi. 
chapters in the same way, that is, hearing His voice 
in those passages as addressed to yourself, you will 
have a still more abundant revelation of His love 
and care for you. 



GOD'S PROMISES, 55 

Last summer I found a dear friend making a 
singular mistake ; one that had never occurred to 
me as possible. She thought she had got to real- 
ize the person of Jesus, as one realizes General 
Washington, in Stuart's portrait of him. Of course 
you would not make that mistake, because you 
have been very differently trained. But it occurs 
to me to ask, what do you in fact expect ? Pos- 
sibly there may be something amiss in your expec- 
tation, which would explain your disappointment 
hitherto. The majority are hindered by indiffer- 
ence ; but when, as in your case, there is no indif- 
ference, there is reason to conjecture the existence 
of some misapprehension, preventing that realiza- 
tion of Jesus which you say you have never had. 
There is a fundamental idea in " Butler's Anal- 
ogy," which was very serviceable to me ; that, 
namely, of its being the mind, and not the eye, 
that sees. If you are near-sighted, you use glasses. 
But the glasses do not see ; and, the doctor adds, 
no more does the eye see ; but the mind looks 
through the eye, and also, and in like manner, 
through the glasses. So again the mind moves 
matter." You push a ball on the floor with your 
hand, or, taking a cane you push it with the cane. 
In one case, as in the other, it is the mind that 
moves matter, " and it cannot be shown that mat- 
ter was ever moved but by mind." It is thus we 
become accustomed to regard unseen powers as 
truly real and efficient, as things audible, visible, or 



56 now TO SEE JESUS, 

tangible. Now, having made this truth your own, 
you go to your chamber to meet Jesus, your true 
living, loving Friend, whose form you have never 
seen, and do not care to see, because faith in 
God's testimony, loving trust in God Himself, 
makes Him so present and real that form and color 
could add nothing to the reality of His presence. 
You begin to treat Him as real. You address 
Him in a simple, frank, ingenuous manner. You 
speak in your natural voice and tone. Your 
reverence may subdue that tone j your love per- 
vade it with tenderness j and a sense of the great- 
ness of your privilege may make it tremulous with 
emotion. A better analogy for exercise of faith 
in this intercourse with Jesus could scarcely be had, 
than that which is supplied by the attempt to swim. 
If you have ever made that attempt, you have dis- 
covered that the one hindrance to swimming is 
distrust of the water ; the difficulty of believing 
that that yielding element, so easily displaced, can 
be trusted to buoy up these heavy bodies of ours. 
The trained swimmer knows that it will. So he 
who is trained to lean and rest on Jesus knows 
that the invisible, impalpable arm and heart, is 
just as real and to be depended on, as any in the 
world ; nay, far, far more ; that for instant pres- 
ence, availability, and strength, no other arm or 
heart can once be named in comparison with His. 
Now how shall you come to give this trust to your 
unseen Friend ? — Heart-trust being, as you know, 



GOD'S PROMISES. 57 

the truest sight of Jesus. I answer, it must be 
wrought in you. Faith is the gift of God to him 
who values and seeks it ; and the place to seek it 
is in the Word of God, for therein He reveals 
Himself. Read there what He has said, and 
command your whole soul to receive both it and 
Him. Reading aloud with heart-utterance, will 
greatly aid you. I think I cannot too much insist 
that you are not to exaggerate the importance of 
emotion. With our training, you and I could not 
come to religion as Orient did ; or as our beloved 
brother Paul came to his recognition of Jesus. 
Consider, it was all totally new to her. Her sen- 
sibility had not been frittered away, as mine, at all 
events, had been, by holding the truth in unright- 
eousness ; by holding it as an abstraction, which I 
was bound to believe, but which, without honestly 
saying so, I was unwilling to obey. She never had 
the thousand and one presentations of the claims 
of Jesus, which I had practically ignored. It is 
no just argument against the reality of your piety 
or mine, that it is less emotional than Orient's or 
Paul's. The true test is to be found in the 
strength of our desire and purpose to be, to do, 
and to suffer all His will. And it does not follow 
that your heart is cold, because you are very quiet. 
Neither is James Brainerd Taylor's continuous 
ecstasy incumbent upon you. Be true to your oc- 
casions. That is all. If I had not seen a dear 
friend for years, ecstasy, on meeting, might be 



58 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

most appropriate. But if I see him every day, a 
genial smile or a cordial word would better be- 
come the occasion. I hope you are learning the 
worth of brief Scriptural lessons, lived on for days 
together. For more than a year I have found in- 
tense satisfaction in turning to Colossians i. 9, 10. 
A.t other times I have taken John xiv. 13, 14, as a 
basis of prayer. I have held up the book to Jesus 
with my finger on those verses, and asked Him, 
Dear Lord, didst Thou not say that ? And wilt 
Thou fail to redeem Thy pledge ? And then I have 
appealed to the Father, that I had Jesus's warrant. 
And then I have felt entirely sure that He could 
never fail me. Is He not dear Jesus ? Precious 
Jesus ? And won't you trust and love Him 
wholly ? 





VII. 
GUIDANCE. 

" I will giiide thee with mine eye." — Ps. xxxii. 8. 

" Wherever He may guide me, 
No want shall turn me back ; 
My Shepherd is beside me, 
And nothing can I lack." 

I FIND in every letter you send me, unmistaka- 
ble evidence that the Good Shepherd is lead- 
ing you. Do not be over much troubled about 
"the weight which oppresses you." I have little 
doubt that its procuring cause is purely physical. 

" Strange that a harp of thousand strings 
Should keep in tune so long ! " 

Experience oft repeated has taught me whenever 
I find my Lord piling up obstacles, apparently insu- 
perable, to the attainment of some desired object. 
He is but trying my faith. For Jesus is in all our 
obstacles revealing Himself to all who have eyes, 
heart-eyes to see Him. So, for a long time, I 
have become accustomed to find in accumulating 
obstacles only a love-token of His presence, and 
of His intention to give the thing desired. You 



60 now TO SEE JESUS, 

say " you are a starving child, deterred from eat- 
ing by the very abundance of what is offered." I 
have a message specially for you : " He that be- 
lieveth shall not make haste.'' Fevered hurry, and 
fear of loss, come of distrust of God's kind inten- 
tions. A gentleman came into my office one day, 
just to say, " I think you will readily get Mr. M., if 
you call on him." My first and wonted impulse 
was to rush. But, remembering whose servant I 
was, and from whom the offered business really 
came, and that " he that believeth shall not make 
haste," I said to myself, Nay, but stop a little, 
and consider who will give what you will get ; and 
that if it pleases Him to give, none can hinder ; 
moreover, that it is fitting that I take it from Him, 
and not from my own dispatch, in which I am 
over apt to glory. And so I stayed my soul on 
Jesus, and then went quietly, trustfully, gratefully, 
and secured the business. You see the application 
of the principle, and you have frequent need to 
make it. Therefore, " be careful for nothing ; but 
in everything by prayer and supplication, with 
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known 
unto God. And believe, — without looking for 
sign or token, — believe simply and alone on His 
promise, ** Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, 
that will I do," — and believing, give grateful 
thanks to your recognized Lord. This is seeing 
Jesus. 

To the "pupil suddenly advanced from the al- 



GUIDANCE. 6 1 

phabet to a difficult yet inviting lesson," I say, Do 
not be overwhelmed with the consciousness that 
"intermediate lessons are not mastered." No 
strange thing hath happened to you. It is no 
more your experience than mine. Remember that 
Jesus took you just as He found you, and will 
never taunt you with past remissnesses. I am un- 
speakably glad to hear you say, " I want to whisper 
' Dear Jesus ' in my heart, and feel His smile in re- 
turn." Do not hesitate to do so. You shall have 
all that, beloved, and a great deal beside. See 
John i. 50 j also i John i. 3 ; the last clause par- 
ticularly. 

You are doubtless familiar with Fenelon, but 
perhaps you have not met with the following ex- 
tracts, which deserve to be treasured in letters of 
gold. They have been to me dear beyond expres- 
sion. 

" The purest prayer is nothing else than loving 
God. Oh how few there are who pray ! For where 
are those who desire the true blessings ? These 
blessings are exterior and interior crosses, humilia- 
tion, renunciation of one's own will, death to one's 
self, the reign of God on the ruins of self-love. 
Not to desire these things, is not to pray. To pray, 
it is necessary to desire them, seriously, really, con- 
stantly, and in reference to the whole detail of life ; 
otherwise prayer is only an illusion, like a beautiful 
dream, in which the unhappy person rejoices, think- 
ing that he possesses a felicity which is far from 



62 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

him. We never cease to pray so long as we do not 
cease to have the true love and the true desire in 
the heart. The love hidden in the depths of the 
soul prays without ceasing, even when the mind 
cannot be in actual attention." [" I sleep, but my 
heart waketh."] " God ceases not to regard in this 
soul the desire that Himself forms there, and which 
the soul itself does not always perceive. This de- 
sire in the disposition touches the heart of God ; it 
is a secret voice that attracts without ceasing His 
mercies. This love entreats God to give us what 
we want, and to have less regard to our frailty than 
to the sincerity of our intentions. This love re- 
moves even our slight faults and purifies us like a 
consuming fire; It asks in us, and for us, that 
which is according to the will of God. For not 
knowing what we ought to ask for, we should often 
ask what would be hurtful to us. We should ask 
certain fervors, sensible satisfactions, and certain 
apparent excellences that would only serve to nour- 
ish in us the natural life and confidence in our own 
strength ; whereas, on the other hand, this love, by 
leading us, by giving us up to all the operations of 
grace, and putting us in a state of entire surrender 
with regard to all that God shall will to do in us, 
disposes us for all the secret designs of God, then 
we wish all, and we wish nothing. What God shall 
wish to give us, is precisely what we shall have 
wished ; for we wish all that He wills, and only 
what He wills. Thus this state contains all prayer. 



GUIDANCE. 63 

[t is an operation of the heart that embraces every 
desire. The Spirit asks in us what the Spirit Him- 
self wills to give us. Then even when we are occu- 
pied without, and the necessary engagements of life 
produce in us an unavoidable distraction, we bear 
always within us a fire which is not extinguished, 
but which on the contrary nourishes a secret prayer, 
that is like a lamp burning without ceasing before 
the throne of God." Speaking of meditation on Di- 
vine truths he says : " These truths must penetrate 
us a long time, as the dye is gradually imbibed by 
the wool we would color. Then a single word, quite 
simply spoken, penetrates deeper than whole dis- 
courses. The same things that had been heard a 
hundred times coldly, and without any fruit, nour- 
ish the soul with a hidden manna, which has multi- 
plied and varied tastes for days together. Indeed 
we must take care not to cease to nourish ourselves 
with certain truths by which we have been touched. 
Whilst there remains still any relish to us, while 
they still have anything to give us, it is a certain 
sign that we need to receive from them. They 
nourish us even without any distinct and precise 
instruction. They are something which effects 
more than all reasonings. We see a truth ; we love 
it ; we repose upon it ; it strengthens the heart ; it 
detaches us from ourselves ; and here we should 
abide in peace as long as we can. In time our re- 
flections and reasonings gradually diminish ; affec- 
tionate sentiments, touching views and desires, in- 



64 ^OW TO SEE yESUS. 

crease. This is an evidence that we have been suf- 
ficiently instructed and convinced by the Spirit. 
The heart enjoys, is nourished, is warmed, is in- 
flamed, a word only is necessary to occupy us a 
long time. At last, prayer goes on growing by 
views constantly more simple and fixed, so that we 
no longer have need of so great a multitude of ob- 
jects and considerations. We are with God as with 
a friend. At first one has a thousand things to say 
to his friend, and a thousand things to ask him ; 
but afterward this detail of conversation is ex- 
hausted without our being able to exhaust the 
pleasure of the intercourse. We have said all ; but, 
without speaking, it is a pleasure to be together, to 
see each other, to feel that we are near, to repose 
in the enjoyment of a sweet and pure friendship. 
We are silent, but in this silence understand each 
other. We know that we agree in all, and that the 
two hearts are but one. The one is poured without 
ceasing into the other. It is thus that in prayer the 
intercourse with God becomes a simple and famil- 
iar union that is beyond all discourse. But it is 
necessary that God only should of himself effect 
this sort of prayer in us ; and nothing would be 
more rash or more dangerous than to venture to 
introduce one's self into it.'' 

I can only wish and pray, that this may prove to 
you as truly God given, as it certainly was to me, 
many years ago, when first placed in my hands. I 
have never met with anything more exquisitely beau- 



GUIDANCE. 65 

tiful, I do not mean the words, but the thing; 
nothing more admirably adapted to my conscious 
need ; nothing out of the Bible which so met and 
satisfied the ideal suggested by the Bible. How 
beautifully it harmonizes with David's profession, 
"As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so 
panteth my soul after Thee, O, God." " Thou art 
my portion, O Lord." " How precious also are Thy 
thoughts unto me, O God ! How great is the sum 
of them ! If I should count them, they are more 
in number than the sand. When I am awake, I am 
still with Thee.'' 

You say, " I used to think, if I could but be as- 
sured of an interest in Christ, I should be very 
happy." This thought is but one more testimony 
to what we know only too well, that at first we are 
sadly low and narrow in our desires. Personal 
safety is what we most think of. But if God has 
mercy upon us, and deals better with us than we 
deserve. He soon makes us ashamed of this, and 
we discover how ignoble it is to seek for nothing 
but future final salvation. I fully feel the truth of 
what you say of its being " a hard lesson — that of 
fear — to unlearn." But it is encouraging to re- 
member that faith is not of yourself, but the gift of 
God ; and He may give it you in a moment, and 
nothing is better suited to secure this gift than per- 
sistency in forgetting yourself, and in making the 
words and acts of the Lord Jesus your constant and 
loving study. Fill your mind with those divine dec- 
6 



66 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

larations which warrant the resolution : " Come 
what may, I will not doubt His goodness, wisdom, 
honor, every generous sentiment." Why not so 
resolve ? and firmly ? There is much in making up 
one's mind to believe everything good of God. If 
you are not already familiar with the thought, 
make it a common thought, that if much requires 
to be done in you, the more it will honor Jesus to 
work out that which should be done. He is a 
Saviour to the uttermost for all who come unto 
God by Him. I do not remember if I have already 
quoted the passage, but I have derived immense 
support and consolation from our Saviour's declara- 
tion, John xvii. lo, "I am glorified in them.'' What 
an irresistible argument it is, thus put into our 
mouths ! Father, remember that thy well beloved 
Son, my precious honored Lord, is glorified in my 
sanctification, John xvii. 17. 

I have found it good to ask for holiness for holy 
purposes; that is, being watchful against selfish 
petitions, to ask to be made a vessel of mercy to 
many ; and to this end, to be " filled with all the 
fullness of the blessed God." 

I should like much were the thing possible — which 
indeed it is not — just to take the hand of a friend 
who wrote me yesterday, and putting it into yours, 
say. There, just talk it over with each other. What 
do you think she was puzzling about ? She says : 
" You wrote me, in the Spring, that I must use en- 
dearing epithets in my communion with Jesus ; and 



GUIDANCE. 67 

I have j until now I am almost frightened by the 
temptation to love Him to the extent of forgetting 
reverence and awe. I have been searching the 
New Testament to find a warrant for such intimacy 
of affection and don*t find it. He seems to me, on 
the contrary, to put the people off." Well, I did 
not wonder at her making that discovery ; for it is 
there. When one came saying, " I will follow Thee 
whithersoever Thou goest," his service was declined. 
Doubtless he had not counted the cost. James and 
John were given to understand that that was their 
predicament. Peter was confident, but self -ignorant ; 
and the Syrophenician woman, who was sound at the 
core, was given an opportunity to show to all the 
world that she looked beyond His words, into the 
heart of the speaker, and knew how to take her 
Lord. Even we ourselves, made in God's own 
image, cannot open ourselves to every one. Jesus 
would encourage only those who would forsake all 
for Him. A word about that struggle with un- 
belief which it cost you to conclude your letter 
with, " Your sister in Christ." I have often had 
occasion to say, I feel at this moment the Gospel 
would be no Gospel to me, if it did not come right 
down to my feet, to the low plane whereon I stand, 
meeting me where it finds me ; my Lord saying to 
me, I invite you now. I offer to take you just as 
you are. Will you be mine ? Will you put yourself 
unconditionally, unqualifiedly into my hands ; sub- 
mitting the transformation of yourself to my con- 



68 HOW TO SEE yESUS, 

duct ? He puts the same question to you. If you 
assent, then it is your privilege at once to. act the 
part of a believer. You have nothing to do with 
the matter of putting yourself on probation to see 
if you will hold out. That is the impulse of un- 
belief, against which, as an enlisted soldier of Jesus, 
you have declared war ; war instant ; war endless. 
Jesus wants your full heart's love ; and He wants it 
now. And having Himself given you the undeni- 
able warrant, in Mark xii. 30, there is not a 
shadow of a doubt of His offering you the utmost 
possible freedom of loving access to Him. John, 
the beloved, adds his plain testimony in his first 
Epistle (i. 3) : " And truly our fellowship is with 
the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." As 
I wrote to that dear sister, so let. me say to you : 
There can, I think, be no loss of reverence and holy 
awe, in consequence of a greatly growing affection- 
ate love providing only that there be reasonable 
pains taken to see Jesus as far as we can, in the 
whole range of his attributes. Remembering, that 
while He is " the man Christ Jesus,'' He is also " the 
brightness of the Father's glory, and the express 
image of His person ; '* that " all things were made 
by Him and for Him ; " that " He knows every 
thought of man's heart;" that "the heavens are 
unclean in His sight ; " and viewing Him as he ap- 
pears in Psalms 45 to 50, and in the 139th, also in 
Job xxxviii., and on to the end of that book. But 
these are the references for another sort of spirit 



GUIDANCE. 69 

than yours. I do not think you are in danger of be- 
ing presumptuous. I am much more apprehensive 
of your permitting awe to repress your love. You 
should listen to His assurance : ^* I am the rose of 
Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.'' And if you 
are beginning to find Him whom your soul loveth, 
you should hold Him fast, and not let Him go. He 
may, to try your faith, make as though he would go 
farther, and yet be well pleased to have you con- 
strain Him to abide with you. Luke xxiv. 28, 29. 
My undoubting belief is, that you may have just as 
much love, and as much freedom to love Him, as 
you can appreciate. Try Him. 





VIII. 



TRIAL OF FAITH. 



" Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord." — Hosba vi. 3 

" I cannot rest till in Thy blood 
I full redemption have ; 
But Thou, through whom I come to God, 
Canst to the utmost save." 

I FEEL perfectly sure that our Lord is, as you 
suggest, " trying your faith." It reminds me 
of my own experience 4n 1831. I was in earnest; 
I know I was in earnest ; just as I am sure you 
now are. I tried in all ways to give myself to 
Jesus. I suspect I actually did give myself to 
Jesus before I realized the fact. In the retrospect 
it does not appear to me at all difficult to under- 
stand that there might be great good to be derived 
from a continuance in uncertainty. " Wait, I say, 
on the Lord." '^ It is good that a man should both 
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." 
No, surely, we are ready to exclaim, you can't 
mean that it can be as good to wait, as instantly to 
receive what we seek ! 

When it did come, it came not as I anticipated, 
but fully, gloriously, and wholly of the Lord. Since 



TRIAL OF FAITH. 7 1 

then my experience has been that of your friend 
who " finds Christ so near that He can almost be 
touched." And yet that does not express it. You 
see why; because it falls back on the sense of 
touch, for an illustration. But He is nearer than 
that. John Foster speaking of friends says, " I 
will converse with my friends in solitude ; then 
they seem to be within my soul ; when I am with 
them they seem to be without it." I like this 
way of considering our relations to our beloved 
Jesus. My soul is a receiver ; only exhaust or 
empty it, and the Holy Spirit will come in, as 
the air rushes into the exhausted receiver, when 
opportunity is offered. Our part is just to make 
room for Him. Only purely purge His temple, and 
you cannot keep Him out. You will perhaps be 
saying, Ah ! that is what I cannot do ; and must 
depend on Him to do it. Admit that; but one 
thing remains for you, namely, to will to do it. 
" He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." 
A Scriptural paradox, and not unintelligible ; for 
he that comes in the best time, cannot be charged 
with delay. Doubtless you will have that sense of 
nearness you crave. And yet if my Heavenly 
Father finds something to be corrected by with- 
holding the sense of His nearness, shall I prescribe 
to Him ? Nay, Lord, but be it unto me even as 
Thou wilt. Now about your difiiculty in attempt- 
ing to read the fourteenth of John. I think the ex- 
perience of the most spiritual persons I know shows 



72 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

this difficulty to be not uncommon. " One day you 
read, and find only words, words, words." Anothel 
day and you are saying, "Or ever I was aware, 
my soul made me like the chariots of Ammina- 
dib." As F6nelon testifies, "A line or a word will 
keep the soul a going a long time." President Ed 
wards bids us " watch for the gales of the Spirit." 
Now this is not because God wishes to deal with us 
in an arbitrary way, but because it is immensely 
to our profit to become thoroughly aware of our 
utter dependence upon Him. You will often find 
when you cannot read a chapter to advantage, you 
can read a single verse. I make a point of fasten- 
ing upon a verse, or even a word that fixes my at- 
tention. Thus I have found the " Daily Food " 
often very useful because of its shutting me up to 
one verse or two. Persist in making your verse 
reading an actual conference with Jesus. Thus 
when you read : " He that hath my commandments 
and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me," say 
to Him, ** Dear Jesus, I have Thy commandments ; 
I love them ; I try to keep them ; very imperfectly 
do I succeed, dear Lord, that I must own. But it 
is my grief ; I confess to Thee frankly, and with no 
attempt at palliation. And Thou hast said that if 
we confess our sins. Thou art faithful and just to 
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all un- 
righteousness." You might go on, if you chose, to 
enlarge upon your unworthiness of favor, and con- 
trast with this the desert of God's dear Son. But 



TRIAL OF FAITH. 73 

better than this, would it not be, if dropping all 
consideration of yourself you could give undivided 
thought to the attractive characteristics of your 
Lord. You will find scores and hundreds of pas- 
sages in the Bible particularly suited to aid you in 
doing this. Take for example the nineteenth Psalm. 
"The heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
firmament showeth His handiwork.'^ Familiar as 
this truth is to you, its power to interest is by no 
means exhausted. Every successive sunset . and 
sunrise brings new pleasure to you. You cannot 
forget the assurance in the first chapter of Colos- 
sians that all things were made by Him, your own 
loving Lord, by Him, and for Him. And the speech 
concerning Him and His works, which day utters 
unto day, is intelligible and sweet to you. Every 
item of knowledge of Him and of His works may 
surely bind you more closely to Him ; may quicken 
and intensify your admiration and love. And when 
you pass from the works of material creation to 
those of mind and heart, will not your apprecia- 
tion rise to a higher and warmer type ? With 
David you will be enforced to exclaim : " The law 
of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul : the tes- 
timony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. 
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the 
heart : the commandment of the Lord is pure, en- 
lightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, 
enduring forever: the judgments of the Lord are 
true and righteous altogether.'' You will naturally 



74 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

— I was going to say inevitably — fasten upon the 
thousand and one instances supplied by the inci- 
dents of your own family and personal history, as 
illustrating these attributes of your Lord : " More to 
be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold : 
sweeter also than honey and the honey-comb." Is 
not this seeing Jesus ? And is it not a precious and 
affecting sight ? Is it not strange that we spend 
so much time and strength deploring our own un- 
worthiness, our backwardness especially to love our 
Lord, when the very time and strength thus con- 
sumed in regrets, were it given to the study of His 
Word, to the study of Himself as disclosed in His 
Word, would suffice to raise our love to a great 
height ? 

How would it be possible, for example, to read 
frequently, to commit to memory and to heart, as we 
easily might, the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters 
of John, and not be convinced beyond all possibil- 
ity of doubt, that Jesus' love to us is beyond all com- 
parison, for sweetness, for tenderness, for endur- 
ance, and for painstaking. True, we may neutralize 
all this evidence, precisely as we may neutralize 
the evidence of human friendship, by trampling 
upon, or by neglecting it. Evidently tlie antidote 
to distrustful thoughts and anxious solicitudes is to 
be found in the diligent study of our God, in all 
His providences, in His works, and above all in His 
word. You say, " The day passes on ; I do not 
think happy loving thoughts pf Jesus, perhaps think 



TRIAL OF FAITH. 75 

little about Him in any way." To this I reply, you 
have in former letters made reference to physical 
exhaustion and depression. No doubt this has 
much to do with the religious experiences you re- 
gret. Indeed, I question, if these should be called 
religious experiences. You may, however, make 
them such in quoting His own words : "Shall there 
be evil in the city and the Lord hath not done it ? " 
and in submitting your soul, with. Not my will, dear 
Lord, but Thine be done, I do not think that " you 
must conclude something is amiss in your desires, 
or in your consecration, because you cannot imme- 
diately say, I love the Lord," etc. A deep work of 
grace in your heart may require a measure of sus- 
pense. If you attained at once, on your first ask- 
ing, what would satisfy your longing, you might re- 
lax your endeavors and make little further progress. 
It certainly is not " wrong for you to look for and 
to covet some degree of conscious love ; " and yet 
I would guard against anxious looking even for 
that. Loving trust in Jesus and His promises, is the 
one thing needful, and the earnest study of Jesus, 
to know Him more fully, to get better hold of some 
trait already known, or a clear apprehension of 
some trait not hitherto considered. Dismiss for 
the time, as far as you can, what Christians tell you 
of their conscious nearness, and try to see Jesus 
A^ith your own eyes as He reveals Himself, for exam- 
ple, in the chapters in John to which I have just re- 
ferred, or in any others which attract you. Expect 



^6 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

the Comforter to fulfill to you the promises Jesus 
makes on His behalf, namely, that He shall guide 
you into all truth. When you pray to Him, do not 
make your praying to Him very different from sim- 
ple talking with Him. Accept the fact, on Jesus' 
statement, that you have the Comforter with you 
always; "that He may abide with you forever." 
It seems to me that you may cling to the fact, even 
when you cannot secure the consciousness you 
crave. Do not say, or think, that your prayers can 
avail nothing in my behalf. This saying is one 
more revelatioh of the subtle mischief of unbelief ; 
I should rather say of the evil arising from long in- 
dulged erroneous views of your actual relations to 
God. You speak as if your prevailing in prayer 
depended upon what you are ; whereas it depends 
upon what Jesus has done, and is doing : " He ever 
liveth to make intercession." As for ourselves, 
" Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord." And Jesus 
adds : " Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that 
will I do." You can surely plead for me and mine 
in Jesus' name ; in His interest, for the furtherance 
of His wishes. And in thus pleading you will lay 
me under the highest obligations. 




IX. 

GOD'S MINUTE CARE. 

** As individual stars are we 
Set out in God's infinity, 

With cyclic ways about His throne 
What if the mystic, spheric course 
Drawn by His silent, unseen force, 

Swerve out beyond thy ken in the unknown ? " 

YOU cannot doubt that " He who spared not His 
only begotten Son, but freely gave Him for 
you, will with Him also freely give you all things." 
But, you tell me, you think your belief of this great 
undeniable truth, like your belief in the law of gravi- 
tation, by reason of its very breadth and universal 
application, almost wholly fails to control you. 
Evidence of infinitely less love touches you deeply, 
when it comes in the looks and tones of those who 
are about you. 

Well, communion with God, walking with God, 
loving God with all the heart, soul, mind, and 
strength, does not appear to be natural to most of 
us, does it ? And the confident assertions of some, 
that human nature is not a fallen nature at all, but 
a very good nature, lacking nothing but cultivation 
and development, will not bring conviction to your 



^8 HOW TO SEE yESUS, 

mind or mine ; no, not to any one who is earnestly 
set on pleasing God. Such an one is much more 
likely to point to the exclamations of St. Paul, as 
expressing what he finds to be painfully true : 
" How to perform that which is good, I find not. 
For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil 
which I would not, that I do.'' But surely it is no 
small consolation to find that in sturdy resistance 
to these wayward propensities, is the path of virtue. 
In persistent endeavors to conform our lives to the 
will of God, and to the beautiful example of the 
Lord Jesus, we are cultivating that which ennobles 
and purifies us. We find also the unmistakable evi- 
dence of God's nearness, of His intimate acquaint- 
ance with all our needs, of His ceaseless, minute, 
and tender care for us. When in the retrospect we 
clearly see that He has " led the blind by a way 
they knew not," we are moved by the love that 
would not be alienated even by our unbelief ; but 
patiently followed us with renewed, multiplied, and 
patient manifestations of more than maternal love. 
" Fear not," He says, " not a sparrow falls to the 
ground without your Father ; ye are of more value 
than many sparrows ; the hairs of your head are all 
numbered." Be assured you are not lost in the 
crowd of His creatures. His heart is set on draw- 
ing you into that close fellowship with Himself 
which must of necessity be more to you than all 
beside. Naturally, it seems to you, that you alone 
desire such fellowship. You are ready to exclaim, 



GOD'S MINUTE CARE. 79 

Oh that I could indulge the hope that He would 
care for this as I do ! So as young children, how 
often we sighed out, Oh, if my father or mother 
would only give me this or that, it would make me 
so happy ! Only when we in our turn have be- 
come parents, do we begin to realize how greatly 
a parent's loving carefulness exceeds all possibility 
of- the child's conjecture. When I look back to 
the little and larger incidents of my youth, the inci- 
dents which made the warp and the woof of my 
young life, long before my conversion, before I had 
begun to consider God's interest and purpose in 
my life, those incidents assume an interest and an 
importance which cannot be exaggerated. They 
are just so many unmistakable tokens of His defi- 
nite, far-seeing, thoughtful, loving care. " Behold 
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon 
us, that we should be called the sons of God ! 
Beloved, now are we the sons of God." Behold 
His purpose, resolved upon and adopted long be- 
fore we ever entertained the thought, now carried 
into effect ! To all this He subjoins, and upon this 
He rests His moving appeal : " Let not your hearts 
be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me." 
And He who makes this appeal is the same of 
whom it is written : " By Him were all things cre- 
ated, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visi- 
ble and invisible, whether thrones, dominions, 
principalities, or powers ; all things were created 
by Him, and for Him." Why you should seem to 



8o HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

yourself to be separated from this loving Friend, 
it is not easy, perhaps not possible, to affirm. It 
surely is not unreasonable to conjecture, that it is 
for the nurture of that faith which clings all the 
closer to the unseen. It has been well said by 
one of old time : " He that watches for provi- 
dences " — meaning unmistakable tokens of God's 
constant, minute, personal care — " shall have 
providences." The self-styled philosophers, who 
can find no analogies in God's natural works to 
warrant such expectation, do but convict them- 
selves of being very heedless observers of those 
works. 

This morning I received a letter from the dear 
friend who was fearful of loving Jesus too familiarly, 
in which she says : " Did you never look out upon 
a landscape, or upon some beautiful painting, and 
gaze until your whole soul was lost in it — you were 
not conscious of individual existence ? I have had 
such moments in thinking of Jesus. No sense of 
sin j no realization of imperfection ; lost to every- 
thing but His presence. Well, the night I got your 
letter, I prayed God, with tears of penitence, never 
to let me have them again." And she writes thus 
because I, in my feeble and inadequate endeavors 
to indicate to her the true medium, must have mis- 
erably failed. Else how could the dear child imagine 
that I could have anything but joy in her being 
thus absorbed in Jesus? The Lord help me to 
avoid discouraging His lambs. 




X. 



LOOKING TO JESUS. 

* At evening time it shall be light." — Zech. xiv. 7. 

" Up to the hills I lift mine eyes, 
There all my hope is laid ; 
The Lord who built the earth and skies, — 
From Him will come mine aid." 

YOU need have no *^fear that my heart will grow 
heavy at the sight of your familiar hand," for 
I receive each familiar letter as a fresh token of 
the love of Him who gave Himself for us. You 
will not think me unfeeling if I tell you, that I have 
been both sorry and glad that " you have been in 
deeper darkness ever since reading my previous let- 
ter," because I recognize your Guide through the 
darkness. This is His way. He goes before you. 
He stands, as upon the lake He stood before Peter, 
and bids you come to Him upon the waves. " Fear 
not, little one, it is your Father's good pleasure to 
give you the kingdom." Most gladly would I have 
had that hour's talk with you which you craved. 
Say to Jesus just what you would have said to me. 
He is perhaps plunging you into "the night of 
faith." It was in Thomas k Kempis, if I remem- 
6 



82 HOW TO SEE yESUS. 

ber rightly, that I found that expression. Jesus 
taught me its meaning, and to regard the, experi- 
ence as being of exceeding worth. Do you not dis- 
cern a foreshadowing of it in Genesis xv. 12 ? 
Then, as now, it was a prelude to great blessings 
to come. Stay your soul upon Psalm cxii. 4. 
" Unto the upright there ariseth light in the dark- 
ness." So have I found it, and so will you. When 
do we best realize the beauty of the heavens ? Is 
it not when the stillness and the darkness of night 
is upon us ? In the seeming darkness which you 
now bewail, the Star of Bethlehem is just about to 
shine upon you. 

Sometimes in the midst of an attempt to comfort 
one of His beloved ones, I am startled by a sudden 
impression of the absurdity of any attempt of mine 
to show His love, whose love throws all my show- 
ings into utter obscurity. It is not merely true that 
" you will one day see the love of Jesus," but that 
you will soon see it. It is because you have not 
heretofore seen clearly your warrant to expect what 
you now desire, that you have not sooner won soul- 
satisfying views of the loveliness of Jesus. Do not 
put those views far away in the future, as though 
you must needs be long in coming up to them. 
Let me beg you again to cherish great expectations. 
Our blessed Lord is only trying you, to see if you 
really care for the great boon you are asking. Not 
that He needs the evidence, but you need it ; and 
principalities and powers in heavenly places need 



LOOKING TO JESUS, 83 

it, and are waiting to see Him redeem His 
promise : ** Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to 
know the Lord." Be firmly resolved that when He 
has tried you, He shall not find you wanting in 
trust But if you are asking, Ah, how can I be 
sure? then take up His own divinely furnished 
words, '*I can do all things through Christ who 
strengtheneth me." Not only do not go back of 
your consciousness, but do not go back to past 
experiences. Let us suppose the worst, — that 
you have never really made a total gift of yourself 
to Jesus. We may begin at this point. Blessed 
Saviour ! He calls thee now. '* Come, for all 
things are now ready." Sit right down to His feast. 
Never lose a moment in bemoaning yourself over 
the past. His arms are wide extended to you. 
Will you come ? The prolonging of your painful 
experience is by no means a denial of your request. 
Every heart-breaking desire of yours, " Oh that I 
knew where I might find Him ! " is a nearer ap- 
proach to that emptying of your heart for Him, 
which absolutely insures your receiving your desire, 
and hastens the hour. Then do not scruple to re- 
new and to augment your desires to see and embrace 
Jesus. Be assured I shall give Him no rest until 
He enables you to write me, '^ I have found Him." 
'* I have found Him whom my soul loveth." 

What you want is, " Christ in you." That is just 
what He desires for you. Is this mystical ? Cer- 
tainly its meaning is hidden from the natural man. 



84 HOW TO SEE yESUS, 

God says that. But Jesus Himself adds, " To you it 
is given." To know God and Jesus Christ is eter- 
nal life. He prays for you, and declares that He 
is glorified in His disciples, that is in you. Paul 
prayed for the Colossians, " that they might be filled 
with the knowledge of His will." This is to be 
freely received, as a most free gift. You cannot 
fill yourself with such knowledge and such love, 
but you can be filled. There are persons disposed 
to be indolent and self-excusing, on whom it were 
needless or unwise to press this, seeing they are 
predisposed to pervert it. I have no fear in saying 
it to you, because you are earnestly craving what 
our Lord desires to give you. Be it that He is 
sovereign and influenced in His gifts and revelation 
of Himself by some considerations not shown to us ; 
yet to you He has given most significant intima- 
tions of His wish to be seen and known by you. 
Your hunger and thirst for this, is a sure earnest 
of it. 

There is a state of mind and heart which may be 
characterized as self-emptied. Get it, if you can. 
Fasting helps to it. If Jotal fasting disables you, 
as I think it would be likely to do, eat a cracker, or 
three, if you choose. An invalid should not at- 
tempt that which is suited only to the needs of 
those who are in sturdy health. To be emptied of 
self is most desirable. This does not imply any 
high wrought emotion. It implies only a clear per- 
ception of the lesson, " What hast thou that thou 



LOOKING TO JESUS, 85 

didst not receive ? " and the earnest desire to re- 
member this lesson. See Psalm cxxxi. : " Surely I 
have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is 
weaned of his mother. My soul is even as a weaned 
child." Get to this, and Jesus will grow up in you. 
Seeing is not so much the right word as some other. 
Trust Jesus wholly, and keep trusting Him. Act 
steadily and persistently on the assumption that 
He is entirely trustworthy. The inevitable conse- 
quence will follow in God's best time, and that 
will not be long in coming. I have complete sym- 
pathy in your having no wish to repeat past experi- 
ences. No doubt some lessons are best learned 
through many repetitions, but many experiences 
we may reasonably expect to leave behind us. 
Every year of my life is better than its predeces- 
sors. I am ever expecting the greater things di- 
vinely promised, and my expectations are as con- 
stantly exceeded. 

In praying for you to-night I am again' led to 
wonder if you are not delaying your peace in be- 
lieving in Jesus, through the expectation of some 
sensuous impression of Him. The thing to be 
coveted is simply a controlling confidence in Him 
as a real, present friend. I would illustrate thus : 
A slight degree of confidence in a friend you had 
never seen, might obviously be increased by the 
presentation of facts adapted to establish the char- 
acter of that friend. Such evidence of character 
would not necessarily bring any form before you. 



86 BOW TO SEE JESUS. 

It might remind you of some one you have known 
possessing like characteristics ; and as the material 
form, like the name, stands for and represents the 
individual person, either the one or the other might 
be brought to your mind's eye by the recital of 
his own or like characteristics. This, I say, might 
come incidentally. But the thing of vital impor- 
tance, in respect to your Lord, is not this, but an 
unwavering confidence in His friendship for you ; 
in His nearness. His accessibility, and His availa- 
bility for any and every need. This confidence 
evidently comes not from any excitation of the im- 
agination, from any vision of form or features, but 
from the diligent study, and simple and hearty be- 
lief in His words, and in Himself as that self is 
made out from the study of His words and of His 
life. When you read that Jesus had compassion 
on the multitudes who had followed Him into the 
wilderness ; that He would not send them away 
hungry, knowing that divers of them had come from 
far, you realize Him as being pitiful and compas- 
sionate ; and so count with confidence on His pity 
for yourself in your own hour of need. The story 
of blind Bartimeus fosters this confidence j so does 
that of the man at the pool of Bethesda ; Jesus' 
visit to Zaccheus; His kindness to the woman 
which was a sinner; to the man possessed with 
devils ; and to a multitude beside. The conviction 
produced and fostered by the indwelling Comforter, 
Tesus in like manner cares for me, and for all my 



LOOKING TO JESUS. 8/ 

needs, penetrates your heart ; and you reason of 
your own personal relations to Him thus : — 

" I have need of His healing mercies for my soul. 
I will come to Him. He will have mercy on me as 
readily as on any of them." Thus your faith lays 
hold of Him. Your faith turns into word and act, 
and becomes a practical thing. Jesus says, " Come ! '* 
you come. He says, " Cast your care on me ! '^ you 
cast it on Him. He says, " Be careful for nothing ! " 
you cast away all care, and begin with thanksgiving 
to let your requests be known unto Him. 





XI. 

TRIALS. 

*Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth." — Heb. xii. 6. 

" Wish not, dear friends, ray pain away — 

Wish me a wise and thankful heart, 
With God in all my griefs to stay, 
Nor from His loved correction start.^ 

** I welcome all Thy sovereign will, 

For all that will is love ; 
And when I know not what Thou dost, 
I wait the light above." 

I KNOW well what *• a case of conscience " is. 
I shall never forget the two weeks of suspense in 
which our Lord held me, upon the question of try- 
ing for " the ministry." I remember the sheet of 
paper, on one page of which I set down the argu- 
ments for ; and on the other, the arguments against 
it. Full well do I remember the mental wear and 
tear, and, finally, the inexorable necessity of com- 
ing to a decision, because, not to decide was to 
confess one's self an imbecile. Nor did the trial of 
faith end there. For three years thereafter I was 
required to take one step at a time, always with the 
conviction, I have received only permission to try. 
Now the natural man would claim this as a failure 



TRIALS. 89 

on God's part to redeem his pledges of direction. 
You and I know better. The discipline of mind 
and heart is, after all, what we most need ; and 
that we get ; and not only that, but we are infalli- 
libly directed. How often we are told by hasty and 
heedless speakers : " The way of duty is easily found 
when you have the disposition to walk in it.*' To 
such I reply, I have not so learned Christ. He 
has nowhere promised me that. He has indeed 
assured me of infallible guidance, but not a word 
has He said of the way being easily found. On the 
contrary, He has made me know that sometimes it 
is found only with great painstaking, and heart- 
searchings. He has taught me that He " leads the 
blind by a way they know not." He has often led 
me by a thread so fine that I could not see it. 
From your prolonged delay of decision, I have no 
doubt He is thus leading you. What an opportunity 
this gives for simple faith. The very grace we most 
wish to cultivate. Sometimes we find persons who 
profess to have sought God's guidance, giving up 
the decision they reached, — that is, giving up 
God's hand in it, — because they found " hills of 
difficulty," instead of a garden and bower of ease. 
This is surely to be faithless. I have found the 
path in which the Lord led me, hills of difficulty 
and all, to be the right way. Ps. cvii. 7. In 1845 
I asked the Lord, " Shall I go to Europe, on busi- 
ness, or not ? I am in debt, and would fain avoid 
a deeper immersion in that mire. Guide me, dear 



QO now TO SEE JESUS. 

Lord, to that result which will most glorify Thee." 
He influenced me to go. My business plunged me 
twice as deep in debt ; involving much painfulness 
beside. But He bade me have faith in God ; and 
so I did j I never doubted Him or His guidance ; 
and He vindicated Himself and His guidance. I 
pray Him to lead you by a silken thread, ever so 
fine, but strong enough to hold you, provided you 
do not pull from, but with Him. " I will guide 
thee with mine eye," He says. And so He will ; 
and you will be led in "the right way," because you 
desire first of all to honor Him. 

A word about Jesus' knowing beforehand all that 
you could say to Him. Does not your husband 
know all your love for him ? And yet is he so satis- 
fied with that knowledge as to be indifferent to re- 
newed expressions of trust and confidence ? More- 
over, is it not pleasant to go again and again to him 
with an unsettled question ? Is it any less so, to go 
to Jesus with it ? And does Jesus value your loving 
and trustful confidence less than your husband 
does ? Disabuse yourself of this idea, that " inter- 
course with Jesus is so unlike that with visible 
friends." It does not oppress me at all, that Jesus 
knows it all beforehand. On the contrary, I delight 
in remembering that very fact. Obedience is better 
than all the philosophy in the world. He bids me 
come and tell Him ; " Pray without ceasing ; " " In 
everything by prayer and supplication, with thanks- 
giving, let your requests be made known unto God." 



TRIALS. 91 

So I take everything to Him. My forenoon's expe- 
rience qualifies me to say with emphasis, there is 
no progress without suffering. Among the letters 
of my dear boy, now in heaven, I find one written 
two or three years ago, in which he says : " I have 
been reading Flavel ; and he makes me feel very 
uncomfortably. He teaches that we must fear all 
the time, and be forever keeping our own hearts. 
Now I cannot refute what he says, but I am sure 
that is very far from what I have been doing." 
This dear boy had his trials, as you have yours. 
And I am sure I have not got beyond this kind of 
trial. Many a day I am almost on the very verge 
of asking the Lord to let me lie down and die. 
Life's work is irksome. I have not physical force 
enough to like this roughing it in competition with 
men whose faculties are trained to the one business 
of accumulating money. But presently I think, I 
am where my Lord wishes me to be. Would I be 
willing to take my education and all its appliances 
out of His hands ? No, never, never, never ! Behold 
Thy servant, Lord j be it unto me even as thou wilt, 
" all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till 
my change come." Dear James's instinct was su- 
perior to something in Flavel's teaching which his 
experience did not enable him to refute. He came 
upon one of the Scripture paradoxes. " Pray with- 
out ceasing," and "Watch unto prayer," " Be care- 
ful for nothing ; " " Trust in the Lord at all times ; " 
and "Rest in the Lord." The watchfulness that 



92 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

should be taught, that of one friend, jealous about 
whatever "would injure the interest or happiness of 
another friend, is entirely compatible with rest, 
trust, and joy. If Flavel taught that we must fear 
all the time, he was bound to define the fear and 
show it to be the fear of reverence only. It must 
comport with rest and trust and praise and peace. 
The only "keeping the heart all the time," divinely 
inculcated, must comport with and include, " keep- 
ing yourselves in the love of God, building your- 
selves up on your most holy faith, and praying in 
the Holy Ghost.'' I am inclined to think that un- 
consciously to yourself, you have been almost in- 
sisting that God should let you see your progress. 
But it is written : " The kingdom of God cometh not 
with observation." You are quite right in being 
inflexibly resolved on progress ; but you may err in 
not being content to do and be what He commands, 
and infer the progress from His promise, while noth- 
ing meets your eye. Read Heb. xi. 13. May it 
not be that this has been your trouble for months 
past ? And yet this cannot be all ; " For flowers 
need night's cool darkness, the moonlight and the 
dew ; " and in the natural world are many analogies 
for what we find in the spiritual life. I speak of 
the experiences of those who greatly desire "to 
walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." Take 
my own case : the Lord permits, and appoints me 
to plod on in a business not very congenial, and so 
monopolizing of time and mental strength, that but 



TRIALS. 93 

little is left for what we are apt to deem higher avo- 
cations. Now I might ask, why, since it has pleased 
Him to give me an earnest desire to be a son of 
consolation, and a helper of His lambs and sheep, 
does He not give me respite from these absorbing 
cares, and leisure to do the good I would ? But I 
have long since ceased asking or thinking that, be- 
cause He makes me comprehend, in order to be 
of service to the suffering ones, I must acquire fel- 
lowship with them through companionship with 
them in their trials. Perhaps you may find in this 
necessity, the reason for your not immediately at- 
taining the liberty you are longing for. Suppose 
the Lord should say to you : My dear child, all 
that you crave, I will most assuredly bestow. I 
commend you for the craving. I bid you " covet 
earnestly the best gifts j '' but suppose that I see it 
best, in granting your desire, to place you in the 
company of sufferers, who, like Cowper, have min- 
istered immeasurably to the comfort and spiritual 
wealth of others, while yet for themselves wholly 
unable to taste the consolation. It must have been 
at the sore cost of his own desolation, that Cowper 
learned to sing, " There is a fountain filled with 
blood." In resigning yourself wholly to the will of 
our Lord, cost what it may, you are as truly a mar- 
tyr as though you were burnt at the stake. You 
cannot offer your service and yourself to Him and 
fail to be instantly accepted. To every one thor- 
oughly in earnest it must appear, that no one's 



94 ^OW TO SEE JESUS. 

progress was ever so slow as his own. But every 
earnest endeavor to do God's will, is progress. 

Congratulate me that our Father has given me 
again my Monday evening Bible Class. I have 
reason to have great satisfaction in this class ; for 
the lady who opens her parlor and invites the class 
is a devout Baptist. Half or three quarters of the 
class, I presume, are Baptists. Two or more at the 
beginning of last winter were strong Unitarians. 
Before the winter was over, " the disciple whom 
Jesus loved," had convinced them of the essential 
deity of His Master. I delight in classes in which 
all denominational distinctions are ignored. In 
my Sunday morning class I have often had four 
and sometimes five denominations. The same is 
true of my Tuesday afternoon class. I never stay 
away from either class for storm of any kind or 
magnitude ; so don't withhold your prayers for the 
classes on account of weather. In the Saturday 
evening class of young men, I have generally from 
twenty-five to thirty-five. 

Your saying that "the reading of President 
Edwards's resolutions amazed you; that it looked 
burdensome, this making a business of religion," 
reminded me of my dear James's saying much the 
same once. Neither do I think it incumbent on 
you to adopt the whole * Seventy Resolutions ; ' but 
it is worth much to have even read them. And 
when I go home to heaven I shall want to take an 
early opportunity to tell him how much they have 



TRIALS, 95 

contributed to guide and strengthen me. Have 
you thought of these as deriving their force from 
some Divine precept readily found in the Bible? 
Is there a stronger or more exacting thing among 
them all than this : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength ? '' 

Are you familiar with "John Foster's Essays on 
Decision of Character ? " After the Bible I do not 
know of any book that has done me so much 
good. If you " have not yet come into any lib- 
erty," just look up to Jesus now, and ask Him: 
Dear Lord, where is that liberty you promise ? 
How shall I come by it ? Are you not as willing 
to give it to me as to the Galatians ? And when, 
dear Lord ? Why not now ? 

Why not, indeed ? You have His answer in Ro- 
mans viii. I : " There is therefore now no condem- 
nation to them who are in Christ Jesus." I suspect, 
my dear friend, that your faith halts upon the for- 
giveness of sins. Surely it ought not. You know 
I John i. 7, and also verse 9. You know that the 
Son of Man has been lifted up as the brazen ser- 
pent was. If you have not mastered that, you 
ought. Indeed, there is no substitute for just be- 
ginning at the beginning. When your Arithmetic 
or Algebraic problem does not come to a full solu- 
tion, you go patiently back to the very beginning. 
Apparently you have assumed something of which 
you have never been fully convinced. What is 
that something? You should know. Search and 



96 ffOW TO SEE JESUS, 

find it. Do not fear to name it, if you suspect it. 
It is undoubtedly true that you have done too 
much of the " keeping yourself up to the mark." 
You say, " The Comforter has taught you many 
things the past two months ; but you do not see 
that you have learned the one lesson, — Jesus." 
Let me interpret for you. You mean to say, that 
your sensibility toward Jesus has not in that time 
become what you desire. I can't say I am sur- 
prised at that. I suspect your soul has been more 
exercised by attempts to get near Jesus, than your 
understanding has been enlightened by an im- 
proved knowledge of some one or more of His 
adorable characteristics. Your solicitude to make 
progress has been so deep and constant that you 
could not forget yourself and the question of prog- 
ress j but could you have wholly forgotten your 
own interest in the matter, and have been wrapt in 
the study, for example, of " the meekness and gen- 
tleness of Christ,'' might not your love have been 
inflamed to that degree that it would have de- 
voured all your doubts ? Introspection is doubt- 
less sometimes indispensable ; but too much of it 
is a bar to all progress in the knowledge and love 
of our Lord Jesus Christ. I do not remember 
whether we have talked of the necessity of com- 
municating to others, as fast as we ourselves re- 
ceive. I believe there is no substitute for this, and 
no dispensing with it. It is the law of the road on 
which we have resolved to travel. From what you 



TRIALS. 97 

have said, I have received the impression that you 
have in this way endeavored fo do good and com- 
municate, as you conceived that you had opportu- 
nity; but it is more than probable that you have 
often supposed yourself incompetent to speak for Je- 
sus, because your knowledge of Him has been so 
unsatisfactory to yourself. You may have erred in 
this. You might and should tell what you know ; 
and, moreover, you should be adventurous in your 
endeavors to be useful. You have the right to put 
forth exertions, counting upon Jesus to give you 
words and wisdom. For family prayers I have just 
opened at the ninth of Luke, and find Jesus telling 
the disciples, " Take nothing for your journey, 
neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither 
money;'' and it seemed to me most apropos. 
Here are many holding back from service on the 
ground that they are not furnished for their work. 
Now to connect with this the " liberty " you were 
sighing for ; let me ask. How are you to come into 
the highest exercise of liberty, except in casting 
off all other dependence, and launching out fear- 
lessly upon the broad sea of Christian effort, in 
simple dependence upon Jesus ? 
7 




XII. 
REVIVED FAITH. 

** O beauteous things of earth I 

I cannot feel your worth 

To-day. 

O kind and constant friend ! 

Our spirits cannot blend 

To-day. 

" O Lord of truth and grace 1 
I cannot see Thy face 
To-day. 
A shadow on my heart 
Keeps me from all apart 
To-day. 

" Yet something in me knows 
How fair creation glows 
To-day. 
And something makes me sure 
That love is not less pure 
To-day. 
And that the Eternal Good 
Minds nothing of my mood 
To-day. 

** For when the sun grows dark, 
A sacred, secret spark 
Shoots rays. 
Fed from a hidden bowl, 
A lamp burns in my soul 
All days." 



I AM more and more persuaded every hour, that 
we need nothing, absolutely nothing, but sim- 
ple, affectionate, trustful faith in our blessed, 



REVIVED FAITH. 99 

sweet, noble, honored Redeemer. I went to 
church-meeting last evening feeling that perfect 
silence would best become my circumstances. But 
when brother W. read from Matt. xvi. 24 : " If any 
man will come after me, let him deny himself, and 
take up his cross, and follow me," such a sense of 
the sweet privilege of following Jesus came over 
me, that I could not sit still \ I must needs get up 
and tell them how sweet it was to follow always 
and only Jesus, and how rich the reward. How 
He was as good as His word, when He assured us 
that if any man would seek first the kingdom of 
God and His righteousness, all things should be 
added to him j he should have a hundred fold now 
in this time, and in the world to come, life ever- 
lasting. 

Your mention of New Haven, warms my heart. 
I shall never forget how, in the winter vacation. 
Professor Goodrich had a few of us who remained 
in College, up in a recitation-room in the old Ly- 
ceum, and read to us the eightieth Psalm : " Give 
ear, O Shepherd of Israel." A revival began, it 
seemed to me, in the very reading of that Psalm, 
and in the prayers that followed. It was in Janu- 
ary, 1835. Excuse this poor note. I felt as if I 
had finished my work, when I came to my office 
for a few moments to get my letters, and said to 
myself, what better, what more congenial thing 
can I do before I go home and bury my dead, than 
sit down in this corner and write a few words to 



lOO now TO SEE JESUS. 

my dear sister in Christ ? Hope thou in God, for 
thou shalt yet praise Him with an overflowing and 
abounding heart of praise, for that He is the 
health of thy countenance and thy God. In this 
very trial of your faith, this decision reached in 
the dark, I find Him having respect unto your 
prayer, " Lord, increase my faith.'' " Lord show 
Thyself to me." He is doing it, and He will. 
He is drawing thee to Himself by cords of love, 
and you shall be joined to Him in closest affinity. 
Only believe, and trust, and love. 

Thank you for your kind confidence. I feel 
that it becomes me to pray more earnestly, every 
day, to our Heavenly Father, that I may be worthy 
to deserve it. I am exceedingly interested in the 
way in which you are being led. Depend upon it, 
it means much. There is no waste of material in 
the Divine economy. It is therefore not for noth- 
ing that you have been thus held in suspense. I 
cannot have a doubt that great and good results 
are coming out of this, and you are being disci- 
plined rightly to accept the results, and give God 
all the glory. The same mail which brought me 
your letter, brought also a kind letter of sympathy 
from Professor S., and another from one of my 
former Bible class pupils, now a matron and 
mother of quite a family in P. I must tell you a 
little about her. A. came into my Bible class one 
Sunday morning, out of a Unitarian family, her 
heart burdened and thirsting for some knowledge 



REVIVED FAITH, 10 T 

of Christ and His service. It was my blessed 
privilege to aid her in her search. At the first she 
was timid and distrustful of her prospects for spir- 
itual life J fearful of not holding out ; but all the 
while most diligently endeavoring to grow in grace. 
From a timid and uninstructed inquirer, she has 
gone steadily on^ becoming after a year or two, a 
strong and noble Christian, full of faith and good 
works. Almost every member of her father's fam- 
ily followed her lead, and united with evangelical 
churches. Her mother once said to me, " I sup- 
pose you thought me very cross when you came 
to the house to see A. I did not comprehend the 
matter then. I do now, and I want you to convert 
my J.'' The Lord converted him, through the influ- 
ence of a good Christian brother who was in the 
warehouse with him, and he is a clergyman now. 
But dear A. is one of the strongest and most use- 
ful Christians I know ; and I well remember when 
she was far less advanced than you now are. That 
is the point of my story for you. Only hold on, 
and you will certainly grow stronger and stronger, 
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. The 
time is steadily approaching when I shall say to 
some other seeker : There is E. once she was timid 
and doubtful about many things — most of all about 
herself, and her prospects spiritually — and now, 
see what God hath wrought ! You will have be- 
come strong as an angel of God. For, "this is the 
will of God, even your sanctification.'' He will ac- 



I02 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

complish it ; and you will have no false modesty or 
hesitancy in acknowledging the work of God. ■ 

You desire some book that shall take you up from 
the beginning. I could not name any one book 
that would do this. Do you own " Mason on Self- 
Knowledge ? " I got valuable hints from that. I 
have no doubt that I got valuable hints from the 
"Westminster Catechism." I know I got great 
good from the " Memoir," and from the " Select 
Thoughts " of Dr. Payson ; and so may any one 
who will use good sense, and discriminate between 
the doings of the Lord, and the doings of indiges- 
tion ; between reasonable use of flesh and blood, 
and brains, and unreasonable use thereof, — H. W. 
B. to the contrary notwithstanding. I got good 
from "James Brainerd Taylor," and so may you, 
if you will guard against the error of endeavoring 
to make continuous the ecstasy of religious emotion. 
I do not believe, however, there is any way in 
which you will grow so fast, as in reading the 
Book of books ; not by chapters, but by verses, 
and parts of verses which the Spirit makes fresh 
and interesting to you. I think I told you how 
much I have been living for a year past on Colos- 
sians i. 9, 10, turning these verses into a prayer for 
myself. It was the Comforter who one morning, in 
answer to prayer to Him for a blessing on my 
reading, made these verses spring up in my soul 
like living waters from a deep spring. The Com- 
*^orter will do as much for you, if asked ; may do it 



REVIVED FAITH. 103 

any hour, and is likely to do it, if you earnestly 
ask Him. Ask, and ask, and ask, again : " That 
He will fill you with the knowledge of His will, in 
all wisdom, and spiritual understanding; that you 
may walk worthy of the Lord unto all .pleasing ; 
being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in 
the knowledge of God/' Could there be a more 
comprehensive expression of your heart's desire 
than this ? And when you ask, believe. Is there 
any difficulty in this ? Could you not ask me for 
anything in your heart, and believe too ? Treat 
Jesus as well. Will you not ? Live on the verses 
that win you. It is safe. Are you improving in 
praise ? Certainly the translation of my heart's 
jewels has opened the fountains of praise anew, and 
sunk the well deeper. I read, and shout (privately) 
the 103d and the 145th Psalms. If you can bring 
your mind to it, I think it will be of infinite benefit 
to you to take up the leading points of Christian 
faith, which it may never have occurred to you to 
doubt, and turn up the Scripture passages which 
teach them ; settling each one upon your own per- 
sonal investigation, taking nothing for granted, as 
is, alas ! too common. In this way, you will come to 
feel the solid rock under you. The deity of Christ, 
the perfect satisfaction made by His atoning sacri- 
fice, and the forgiveness of sins to all who confess 
and believe ; the indwelling of the Comforter, the 
certain efficacy of prayer, the acceptability of 
praise ; the reality and sphere of faith ; the absolute 



104 ^^^ ^^ ^^^ JESUS. 

certainty of your salvation — - as a believer ; the cer- 
tainty and greatness of God's love, the extent and 
certainty of His Providence. Rom. viii. 28. I know 
hundreds and thousands who have given an intel- 
lectual assent to these Divine assurances, but not 
many who have appropriated them in the heart. 
To-day, if my darling son were here, he would be 
twenty-one. I am commemorating his attainment of 
his majority; his possession of the property pre- 
pared for him from the foundation of the world. 





XIII, 



PATIENT WAITING. 



** They shall not be ashamed that wait for me." — Is. xlix. 23. 

** In the furnace God may prove thee, 

Thence to bring thee forth more bright,— 
But can never cease to love thee : 
Thou art precious in His sight." 

I HAVE this moment read your note of the 26th 
and cannot repress the appeal to our beloved 
Jesus ; What am I, dear Lord, and what is my 
Father's house ? And whence is this grace to me, 
that I should be permitted this sweet and exalted re- 
lation to these beloved unseen friends ? Yes indeed, 
I will pray for you both, and with all my soul, that 
Jesus will manifest Himself to you ; that He will fill 
your souls with adoring love and praise, and so 
draw you to Himself that you will gladly comply 
with the exhortation I was reading this morning, 
Romans, xii. i, and I will pray Him to enable you 
so thoroughly to give, surrender, and dedicate your- 
selves to Him, that there shall remain no hindrance 
to His entering with all His train, and so filling 
these temples with His love and with His glory, that 
you might more easily doubt of the sun and day- 
light on this unclouded morning. Do not think 



I06 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

that all these preparatory endeavors of yours, seem- 
ingly futile, are so in fact. Nothing can be farther 
from the truth. " Blessed are they that hunger and 
thirst." That, even now, is your blessedness, and 
not one of your aspirations is lost. " My God 
shall supply all your need, according to His riches 
in glory by Christ Jesus." It is soul refreshing to 
know that He will do all things in His best time. 
Every aspiration of yours enlarges your capacity 
to receive, and at the same time greatly endears 
you to Him. No words can adequately express the 
pleasure you give Him when you come lovingly and 
trustfully to Him expecting great things. Surely 
it is not difficult for you to comprehend how this 
may be. Here is a friend : the Friend of all friends, 
whose chief ground of complaint against us is, 
that we do not trust Him ; who is ever looking to 
"find faith on the earth;" who searches as with 
a candle for confiding hearts ; who most evidently 
values love as you and I value it : He comes to 
you and begs your love, your trust your undoubt- 
ing confidence in Him as being in truth the loving 
friend He declares Himself to be. Now you ex- 
perience a difficulty in immediately complying. 
Whence comes it? It comes of chronic world- 
ly-mindedness, — shall I say ? No, not in the sense 
of pleasure-loving, dancing, feasting, opera-going, 
dressing and utter vanity, because that is not your 
temptation. But I might say, chronic convention- 
alism j a long continued contentment with cus- 



t 



PATIENT WAITING, 10/ 

ternary religiousness Now our Lord has infused 
into your soul a sense of the fitness of just loving 
Him with all your heart. There is that in you 
which of late is forever saying, " Yes, that is it ; 
that I must have ; it is eminently reasonable ; noth- 
ing less shall satisfy me/' And that, be assured, 
you will attain. There is not, in my mind, a 
shadow of a question that you will. But it is a 
work of time. If some fond mother should bring 
you her daughter, a good and promising child of 
ten years, and say to you : " Mrs. G., I want you 
should take my child and fit her for the highest and 
most useful sphere in life, in a week, a month, or a 
year \ " you would be compelled to reply : " My dear 
madam, you know not what you ask. It is a thing 
impossible in the nature of the case. Your child's 
mind requires time, as well as books. My busi- 
ness is simply to lead the way, assisting in the 
development of the powers which God has given 
her. You may count on my letting none of these 
suffer from neglect. Whatever talent reveals itself 
shall receive the most judicious encouragement." 

You see the bearing of this ; you may count with 
absolute confidence upon our Lord's tender interest 
in you, and care for you \ and that He will put you 
forward as fast as you have strength to go. And 
His attention to your needs is not to be judged of 
by any sensation ; nor is your progress under His 
tuition to be measured either by any particular sen- 
sation, or by any general complacency in any visi- 



I08 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

ble improvement you may think you discover in 
yourself. Not that you may not in fact discover in 
yourself such improvement as may justly impel you 
to give thanks to God ; but, that after all, the chief 
occasion for grateful acknowledgment is His prom- 
ise : " Ask, and ye shall receive. Whatsoever ye 
shall ask in my name, that will I do ; " and that His 
Spirit makes this real to you. Here is the solid 
ground ; the rock, standing on which, you can 
neither be unduly exalted by any sensible fervors, 
nor depressed by any diminution of emotional sen- 
sibility. It is not apparent how you could come 
into full possession of what I am here attempting 
to intimate to you, except through repeated expe- 
riences of apparent gain and loss in your spiritual 
husbandry. Gradually the conviction and realiza- 
tion will gain upon you, that Jesus is unchangeably 
your friend, quite irrespective of your ebb and flow 
of feeling, of the ups and downs of your spiritual 
life. Is it wonderful that the most sensitive instru- 
ment of which we have any knowledge should be 
greatly affected by atmospheric changes, by things 
visible and audible, and by things invisible and in- 
audible ? Eph. vi. 12 : " For we wrestle not with 
flesh and blood, *' etc. 




XIV. 



FAITH'S POWER. 

** And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall re- 
ceive." — Matt. xxi. 22. 

" O Word ! O dear and gentle Word ! 
Thy creatures kneel before Thee, 
And in ecstasies of timid love 
Delightfully adore Thee. 

" O marvelous ! O worshipful ! 
No song or sound is heard, 
But everywhere, and every hour, 
In love, in wisdom, and in power, 
The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word ! " 

I HAVE been following you with earnest inter- 
cessions in aid of your own petition and that of 
your unknown friend. That God has had regard 
to our mutual and united prayers, admits of no 
doubt. I have been thinking much to-day of our 
Lord's own testimony, as recorded by His beloved 
John (xiv. 12-27). Let us go over it anew. *' Ver- 
ily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on 
me, the works that I do, shall he do also ; and 
greater- works than these shall he do, because 1 go 
unto my Father." - An unspiritual mind may doubt- 
less weaken the force of this wonderful assurance ; 
may limit it to the promise of miraculous powers ; 



no HOW TO SEE yESUS. 

or, rather, may attempt to do so. For the attempt 
must utterly fail, because, in the first place, a mir- 
acle being an arrest of usual laws, one miracle is as 
great as another. Secondly, if, for the argument's 
sake, we shall admit that it is more to give Lazarus 
again all his powers, than to give Bartimeus only 
sight, we may say, very well, Jesus gave Lazarus 
all; and in the nature of the case there can be no 
greater miracle than that. If Jesus fed five thou- 
sand men with a few loaves, he could as easily feed 
five hundred thousand with the same. And more- 
over, in point of fact, no disciple has ever performed 
miracles greater than Jesus did. So that kind of 
works could not be His meaning. What kind of 
work it was, is to be inferred from His concluding 
remark and reason or cause assigned : " because I 
go to the Father.'' We have His own direct state- 
ment of one of the consequences of His going to the 
Father (John xvi. 7), namely, that the Comforter 
should come. We have also information of the ef- 
fect of His coming. " He shall teach you all things ; 
He shall testify of me j He shall guide you into all 
truth ; He shall make intercession for you with 
groanings that cannot be uttered. He shall be the 
Spirit of power." Now I can have no doubt that 
our Lord meant to declare his purpose, to reward 
the faith of each disciple with greater results in the 
conversion of men to God than had been seen. In 
strict keeping with this view is his next declaration : 
" And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that 



FAITH'S POWER. Ill 

will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the 
Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will 
do it.'' Surely this is an immense promise, and at 
the first glimpse it seems incredible. But two 
thoughts come to our relief, and to our assurance, 
namely, First, that that which is to be done, is to 
be done by the Father, for the glory of his Son, and 
of Himself, in his Son, and in this view nothing 
can be too great. Thus if it be for Christ's glory 
that you should at once attain that vision of Him 
which you so covet, then may you fearlessly ask 
and certainly receive it. Secondly, that the very 
condition, rightly understood, utterly precludes the 
gift of anything but that which it is best should be 
given, namely, "whatsoever ye shall ask in my 
name." How strange it seems that so many miss 
the force of this condition and limitation. Suppose 
I should go down to New Haven and ask some- 
thing of your mother in your name, I being a 
stranger and unknown to her. What would be im- 
plied ? Would not this, at least, that the giving of 
the thing asked should be in accordance with your 
interest ? Also that the use I proposed to make of 
it, could that be known, should harmonize with 
your interests. 

I must think that the controlling desire and en- 
deavor in all things to please Jesus, covers the 
whole ground of solicitude. Especially if with this 
you connect the great principle of "justification by 
faith alone, without the deeds of the law." Does 



112 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

this need any words ? I presume not ; and yet, 
illustrations, which are abundant and at hand, 
sometimes contribute to make assurance doubly 
sure. For example : If I love you with all my 
heart, if I am pervaded with loving faith in you, I ' 
shall certainly do all the deeds, and say all the 
words which would be demanded by perfect obedi- 
ence to the highest and strictest law. But, what 
would endear me to you, and satisfy your wish as 
respects the law, would not be the compliance with 
the law, but the love. Only keep in mind that you 
are justified by faith alone, and that your works are 
no otherwise of value except as they are the con- 
sistent and inseparable accompaniment of your 
loving confidence, — that is, faith, — and all will be 
well. But here is a matter about which I am con- 
cerned for you : I am afraid of your tending so 
strongly towards a critical surveying, weighing, and 
measuring everything you do, or say, or think, as 
to lose all freedom. Do we need any illustration 
to mark this danger ? Suppose that in your society 
I should be so anxious to please you as never to 
have a particle of mental rest or peace. Would 
that be well Or wise ? Another point : you quote 
the lady who said " the world would be a blank to 
her, without Christ in it." And you are disturbed 
because you could not say that. Now I am im- 
pelled to ask if you remember what was said of 
certain persons in days gone by : " comparing 
themselves among themselves, they are not wise." 



FAITH'S POWER. II3 

You may have experiences and expressions proper 
to yourself, equally acceptable to Jesus, which the 
lady referred to could not claim. I am not sure 
that I could take in the conception of " the world 
without Christ in it." I am not used to any such 
conception ; it does not appear to 'me natural. I 
will venture to say, you never had any other con- 
ception of the world but as filled and pervaded by 
Jesus j for you have always known and acted on the 
knowledge that " all things were created by Him 
and for Him.'' I don't doubt your friend meant, 
or thought she meant, a strong, as well as a right 
expression ; but I very much doubt if the fact she 
conjured up would be much if at all more foreign to 
her feelings than to yours. A good many strong ex- 
pressions spring from peculiarities of temperament, 
or of thought, or of lack of thought. An array of 
unusual words astounds us, it may be less from 
any truth actually contained in them, than from the 
power of suggestion which unwonted words contain. 
Be yourself. Do not even try to be Mrs. Blank. 
Dr. Skinner once told me a capital story of an old 
father in the ministry, a Dr. Lyman Beecher kind 
of man, who felt himself almost annihilated by a 
very solemn Father Blair. Father Lyman — so I 
will call him — entertained Father Blair for a week. 
Beholding day by day this embodiment of solemnity, 
and contrasting with it his own untrammeled buoy- 
ancy of spirit, and freedom of utterance, he felt, as 
he said, that he had no piety at all. It was his cus- 
8 



114 ffOW TO SEE JESUS. 

torn every Saturday afternoon to meet his elders 
and pray and confer with them in the Ut tie. school- 
room contiguous to his church. He was remarkable 
for his punctuality to all his engagements. But 
when Saturday came, the assembled elders eyed the 
clock and wondered at his non-appearance. Ten 
minutes past, fifteen, twenty, then the minister was 
seen coming across the green. But in what un- 
wonted guise ! The horse which before never lacked 
abundant hints to hasten, was now creeping along ; 
his rider not now erect, but drooping. Solemnly 
the old man dismounted ; slowly and solemnly he 
tied his nag. Solemnly he took his seat and said 
never a word. The senior elder, after a brief pause 
demanded, " Parson, are you sick ? '' " No." " Is 
your wife sick ? " " No." " Has anything hap- 
pened ? " " No." " Well, then, you 're clean daft." 
"Well, I believe I am. I can't be Father Blair, 
and it 's no use to try. Brethren, we '11 proceed to 
business," and at it he went in his old natural 
style. 

You do not know how you would feel under the 
Joss of any friend, until the loss comes. Much less 
can you even imagine, ever so faintly, what it 
would be to have it really brought home to your 
conviction, that Jesus was no longer in the world. 
Neither do I believe you have any call to attempt 
to work yourself up to the ecstasy of any brother 
or sister, be he or she more or less fervent in prayer. 
or in speech. Ask the Holy One to touch your lips 



FAITH'S PO WER, 1 1 5 

and heart with a coal from off His altar, and He 
will do it. No matter whether the result compares 
with Mrs. A.'s or Mrs. B.'s experience. You may be 
no more like Mrs. A. or Mrs. B. than a peach is like 
a pumpkin. You were not made to do their work^ 
but your own. There is more than an even chance 
that the idea of "almost touching Jesus," would 
send your mind oif in a totally wrong direction. 
Drop that, and do not look for that, but look 
directly to Him, and take what comes from Him. 
Oh, to be totally disabused of groundless and ma- 
terialistic anticipations ! Ask Him as freely as 
you will, and take all from Him. Let Him come 
near to you in His own way. It is a hundred to 
one that He will come to you in a way for which 
you have found no precedent. That was my own 
experience in " finding God real." No Mrs. A. or 
Mrs. B. ever told me that. Jesus revealed Himself 
to me, manifested Himself, and so manifested 
Himself, that I knew Him, and rejoiced in Him. 

As to "entering into the enjoyment of your 
friends, in that prayer-meeting, to the extent they 
did," much might be said. Premising that it cer- 
tainly does not look favorable for the spiritual con- 
dition of any of us, to be found without sensibility 
to any increase of genuine spiritual fervor, I may 
declare to you, as the combined result of experience 
and observation, that few things are more mislead- 
ing than sensible fervors. I have many a time been 
completely extinguished by the astonishing fervors 



1 16 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

of persons — comparing my own love with theirs, it 
seemed to" me to be nothing — whom I found to be 
neither truthful nor honest. Others there were 
whose fervors soon burned out, and the persons 
subsided into a rate of living which compelled seri- 
ous doubt whether they ever had any fire of true 
devotion. Meanwhile I found my own love had not 
only suffered no abatement, but had gone on in- 
creasing, through summer's heat and winter's cold, 
quite independent of what others might, or might 
not, be feeling, saying, or doing. I could write a 
volume under this head. I have sat under the ut- 
terance of vehement remarks as to what prayer 
■ought to be, until I was filled with a sense of the im- 
possibility of praying at all after such a prelude. 
Again, I have been asked to join a little circle for 
occasional prayer by a person whose spiritual life 
was to me a mystery and a contradiction of every- 
thing suitable and reasonable. Often and often 
have I wondered how this good man could travel 
round like a horse a in very small mill, saying al- 
ways, * Brethren, what we want is to be stirred up.'' 
Often my inward response was, " Brother, there is 
nothing to stir up." Our need was of fresh supplies 
of Divine truth and Divine love. Often have I felt, 
I cannot pray to any purpose, in the wake of one 
whose soul knows so little of quiet peace in believ- 
ing. I think the feeling that you must, and that 
you ought to be thus and thus affected by what you 
hear, sometimes effectually steels one against all 



FAITH'S POWER, 11/ 

right feeling. To sit meekly at the feet of Jesus, 
and learn patiently of Him, and of Him alone, is 
surely one of the least common attainments found 
here below. Of course I do not for a moment mean 
to imply that we may not learn all we can from our 
fellow Christians. But I think there is a temptation, 
not uncommon, to insist upon church-members heat- 
ing-up, if the expression can be pardoned, under 
fervid appeals from one another. I have nothing 
at all to say against the use of a genuine power to 
arouse and benefit others by any honored possessor 
of this power, but the eloquence of truth, God's 
truth, dropping ever so quietly into a mind always 
offered to the occupancy of the Comforter, — oh, 
how superior is this ! And how much more endur- 
ing the inspirations thus received, than those heats 
which appear to consist with frequent and most 
reprehensible irregularities, even to suspension of 
spiritual life. 

I greatly enjoyed my Bible classes on Saturday 
evening, on Sabbath morning, on Monday evening, 
and on Tuesday afternoon. What a variety of ex- 
periences I have had in these same classes ! Some- 
times such a lack of physical strength ; such an 
almost impossibility at times of obtaining any free- 
dom in prayer for them. But this winter all that is 
changed. I seem to have strength and to spare. 
Praying is as easy as breathing ; and what is more 
wonderful for me, breathing is as easy as praying. 
And yet I cannot talk of these great expectations, 



ii8 



HOW TO SEE JESUS. 



which I have often heard expressed. I have simply 
an unwavering confidence that Jesus will bestow 
abundant fruit of this labor, but no ability to single 
out the individuals in whom it will be found. 





XV. 



PEACEFUL LOVE. 



ToHN xiv. 27 : " Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." xv. 
9; "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in 
my love." xiv. 21 : "And I will manifest myself to you." 

** On wind-swept ponds the lilies rest, 

And yield their sweet perfume ; 
The surface hold nor e'er distrest 

By rise or fall of wave or moon. 
So with the soul that 's stayed on God ; 

Rooted in depths unseen of men, 
His peace is like a river broad, 

His rest beyond all human ken. 

" His skies are starred with God's commands ; 
And these are mirrored in his soul ; 
From heights and depths he lifts his hands 
And prays to Him who made the whole : 
* Take all my will, but leave me Thine, 
Redeem Thy pledge, Thyself reveal, 
For Thou art truly, surely, mine. 

And I await Thy love, Thy seal.'" — Eph. i. 13. 

YOU are kind enough to speak of my being 
useful to you, -but you have little idea how use- 
ful you are to me. I feel sure that you and your 
unknown friend have been praying for me this morn- 
ing, from the uncommonly sweet and peaceful com- 
munion^ with our precious Lord I have been enjoy- 
ing. I thank you with all my heart. I have been 



120 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

entreating Him to bestow the same serene peace 
on each of you. I hke to pray for my friends by 
name. Our beloved brother Paul used and enjoyed 
that privilege. And if you will earnestly pray by 
name for those in whose usefulness our Lord Jesus 
has interested you, such earnest praying will cer- 
tainly greatly help your endeavors to see Jesus. 
Such praying is real cooperation with Him, and 
when persisted in, must needs make real and pres- 
ent to you, Him with whom you thus co-labor. 

You ask, '' Is it wrong to indulge the thought 
that Jesus planned what gives you pleasure and 
profit ? " Pardon me, but I cannot help exclaim- 
ing, how almost infinitely small must be the meas- 
ure of loving trust in Him, that permits you to ask 
such a question ! Indeed, I do not mean to give 
you pain, but how can you, who are so quick to dis- 
cern even the slightest indication of the painstak- 
ing of loving friends, how can you for a moment 
hesitate to recognize the loving painstaking of 
Jesus, who loves you so much more ? 

Upon another point you unquestionably deceive 
yourself, I think. You say, " If only I could say 
truly that I entered into this matter with all my 
soul, I should be content." Now please tell me, 
or rather, tell yourself, what you mean by " all your 
soul." Doubtless you are not vehemently excited. 
But no more are you about your husband, or about 
your mother. And yet I have no doubt you love 
each of these with all your heart. Then vehement 



PEACEFUL LOVE. 121 

excitement is not necessarily the only type of all- 
the-soul interest. Doubtless your love to your hus- 
band is, among other ways, to be measured in this 
way : by your steady, continuous, persistent endeav- 
ors to promote his interests, and to forward his 
usefulness, with a measure of feeling appropriate to 
the demand of each day's work. Now when you 
add that " you think you can sincerely say, that it 
is the honest desire of your heart to be thoroughly 
emptied of self, and conformed to the will of God," 
you appear to me to come right up to the condition 
of the test I seek to apply. I am very glad of what 
you are enabled to say about being " pure in heart." 
That beatitude is inexpressibly sweet to me : 
" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God." I have sometimes lived on that verse for a 
long time. It seems to. me the sweetest thing in 
the world to be; as loving Jesus is the sweetest 
thing to do. And clearly they are so inseparably 
related, that the one is the condition of the other. 
When you "get bewildered," lean on Jesus. 
You have read Miss Fidelia Fiske's narrative of the 
poor Nestorian woman and remember her whis- 
pered " If you love me lean hard." Was ever any- 
thing sweeter than this ! When I read it I thought 
of Jesus — heard His voice in it, and the tears 
would not hold back. When you are bewildered, 
•f you love Him, lean hard on Jesus ; and remember, 
— oh, how many times it has relieved me inexpressi- 
bly to remember it, — "I have got only one thing tc 



122 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

do at a time." Remember also, that," In the Lord 
Jehovah is everlasting strength." This assurance 
has been worth more than a mine of gold to me. I 
find in it a wonderful and infinitely varied applica- 
tion to every variety of solicitude, care, and anxiety. 
It is an expansion of, and a commentary upon, that 
other brief prescription : " Be careful for nothing." 
Never yield place in your heart to a fever of anx- 
iety about anything. Has He not laid in Zion a 
foundation for this restful trusjt? " a stone, a tried 
stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation ? " 

Do you own " Christ Our Example, By Caroline 
Fry, With Autobiography Prefixed " 1 It appears 
to me one of the best books in the whole range of 
religious literature ; sound, earnest, admirably writ- 
ten, discriminating, full of instruction and encour- 
agement, a sweet example of the noblest Christian 
life. 

How plain it is, from the narrative of your men- 
tal and heart struggles about this call to M., that 
God has heard your prayers for sanctification ! Is 
not this the history of the saints from long before 
the time of John Newton ? Often have I felt con- 
vinced that in daring to " seek first the kingdom of 
God and his righteousness," I have laid my dearest 
friends under the same liability to discipline to 
which my prayer and endeavor exposes me. Here 
is your husband, very probably suffering under the 
discipline of suspense and mental conflict because 
you have been hungering and thirsting after right- 



PEACEFUL LOVE. 1 23 

eousness.^ Not but that the Divine wisdom finds 
a needs be and a benefit in it all for him too, as 
truly as though he alone were the object of God's 
care. Hardly anything brings to me so often an 
affecting illustration of the wonderful extent of our 
Lord's resources as the perception that He can 
carry on the education of two, or of twenty, souls as 
easily as that of one ; and moreover that He can 
and does provide that the discipline which prima- 
rily is for one^ is equally in place for the other; and 
still again that the suffering of one, sympathized in 
and shared by the other, shall be the precise thing 
most needful and useful for that other. When I 
think of all this, I am overwhelmed, and can only 
exclaim, '^ Who is sufficient for all these things ! It 
is as high as heaven ; what canst thou do ? Deeper 
than hell ; what canst thou know ? " You say, " If 
through failure to seek earnestly enough, importu- 
nately enough, we have been permitted to make a 
mistake ! " Stop a moment, and think of Jesus' 
words : " My peace I leave with you ; my peace I 
give unto you j '' and think of what hangs thereby. 
Anxious importunity may well have its place in the 
transition state from chronic unbelief in the Divine 
guidance, to simple, affectionate, loving trust. But 
to you, who have now long known that Jesus has 
sent the Comforter ; that He dwells with you and 
in you ; that He constantly guides you ; how proper 
is that serene trust which rejoices in knowing that 
He has promised guidance ; that He abideth faith- 



124 ^(9^ TO SEE JESUS, 

ful j that He never will, that He cannot leave you 
or forsake you. My dear friend, see Jesus in all 
this, actually leading, guiding, keeping you, and 
rest calmly in the profound, undisturbed, undoubt- 
ing conviction, that He who said, ^* I will guide 
thee with mine eye,'' has done and is doing so. 
You will be assisted in this, by just falling back 
upon His own testimony : " So God made man in 
His own image." Consider how we value a stable, 
peaceful trust in ourselves and in each other after 
the friendly intercourse between us which has 
existed for a few months only. I certainly should 
feel grieved if you should write me in a flutter of 
doubt and anxious concern, lest a slip of your pen, 
an unguarded expression, a mistake, more or less, 
in one form or another, would jeopard all the love 
I bear you, alienate my friendly regards, and pro- 
voke me to leave you to go wrong, when it was in 
my power to point out for you the true way. You 
would not so distrust me. Is it not abundantly 
plain that you ought not to conceive of it as a pos- 
sibility that Jesus would leave you. His disciple 
and friend, and your husband. His called and com- 
missioned minister, to err, for the lack of greater 
vehemence of importunity ? Does not quiet confi- 
dence, and soul refreshing rest in His promise of 
guidance, and in His love, more honor Him, as 
well as contribute immensely more to your happi- 
ness, and so to your power to inspire in others like 
precious faith ? 



PEACEFUL LOVE. 1 25 

Of course "you have both been led to a more 
earnest consecration of yourselves to the service of 
the Master/' That is just what He aimed at when 
he moved the M. people to open the subject of your 
removal. And what He aims at, He secures. Is it 
not most blessed to think, aye, and to know, so as 
irrepressibly to shout, with our beloved brother - 
Paul, " I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, 
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
things present, nor things to come, nor height nor 
depth, nor any other creature," not even a call 
from M. nor the decision thereupon, " shall be able 
to separate us from the love of God which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord.'' That was my last lesson 
in my beloved Tuesday class ; and I enjoyed the 
assurance to the uttermost. And the last lesson 
in the Monday evening class mated well with it : 
" I am the bread of life." I felt profoundly and 
with entire delight how Jesus is to the soul, what 
bread is to the body. Tell your good husband to 
keep up a brave heart, and never doubt that the 
Comforter led him to the right decision. 

I could not forbear a pleased smile when I came 

to your disappointment because Mr. thrust 

himself upon you ; and your question, '* Did God 
order that ? " You are learning. Yes, God did 
order that. How many times I have asked myself 
iust that question : " Shall there be evil in a city, 
and the Lord hath hot done it ? " Can any chance 



126 now TO SEE JESUS, 

thrust itself upon, and defeat His plan ? No indeed ! 
But that -is not the whole of the case. If you are 
at all like me, you will understand me when I say, 
that I want to apply remedies, and achieve all other 
things, in about three minutes. Now I do not feel 
that Jesus blames me for that ; but He desires and 
intends to show me a more excellent way. He 
means that I shall completely comprehend that He 
holds all hearts in His hand. He means that we 
shall be schooled to a full appreciation of the ori- 
gin of every blessing ; that it is " not of ourselves, 
but the gift of God." Hundreds and hundreds of 
times have I been over this ground. There is for 
all things a best time. Doubtless He who gave 
man knowledge, knew that that ride in the cars 
about which conscience troubles you, was not the 
best time for the purpose. Nor was that all. He 
had this lesson for you, which He sends me to de- 
liver : " My dear child, begin with a deeper realiza- 
tion of my tender interest in your friend N. She 
is graven upon the palms of my hands ; she is dear 
to me as the apple of the eye ; I have hidden her 
under the shadow of my wings. She, dear child, 
does not know it ; but it is true, none the less. A 
mother may forget her infant, but I cannot forget 
N. You shall have the privilege of helping her ; I 
love you for wishing it ; but not to-day. I would 
have you accustom yourself yet more to the sense 
of my timeliness. I do all things in the best time. 



PEACEFUL LOVE. 12/ 

I shall not explain to you why to-day is not the best 
time. I accept your will to serve. Trust me. For 
your good ; for the trial of your faith, I may see 
fit to hold this case before you, as a study, for a 
long time, showing you a lovely and superior per- 
son continued under the limiting and depressing 
influence of great disabilities. If you think this 
will be very hard for her; let me remind you that 
such was the life of thy Lord from the beginning 
to the close ; a life of suffering for the benefit of 
others. Is it nothing for her that she is permitted 
to walk in my foot-prints? to share my experi- 
ences?'' 

Thus, it seems to me, he reasons with you about 
your solicitude for N. Such an one I have in my 
Tuesday class. If your friend ever visits Hart- 
ford persuade her to take the friendly advice of 
Dr. B. A great many cases of religious trouble 
need medical advice from an intelligent Chris- 
tian physician, who can trace the distress to its 
origin, often a physical malady. I have a dear 
friend, one of the most useful ministers in the 
Presbyterian Church, who by a preparation of 
iron, administered by Dr. B., was raised from the 
depths of religious depression, to a health, vigor, 
and executive power that any of us might envy. 
To N., some day, it may be well to say. Now admit 
that your case is chronic and irremediable. You 
are a suffering child of God and are to continue so. 
It is His will. Can you not accept the bitter cup 



128 



HOW TO SEE JESUS. 



from His hands, and for His sake drink it ? He 
drained the bitter eup for thee. Doubtlessj as He 
appointed it, He sees the painful road you travel, 
to be the safe road. Ask of Him grace to accept 
His appointment, and strength to rest in His will. 





XVI. 
REAL PRAYER. 

" Pray and believe, for God is true ; 
Trust, and receive His love for you ; 
Thy warrant is, that He has spoken ; 
His uttered word can ne'er be broken." 

" 'nr^HEN shall you know, if you follow on to 
X know the Lord." That is my answer to 
your " wonder if you know anything about real 
prayer." I have no doubt whatever that you do 
already know much about it. But how large the 
sphere of prayer is ! And how much, even to the 
most advanced, ever remains to be known. It is 
not, however, the knowledge of prayer, which is for 
the moment so much a question with you. It is 
rather the knowledge of Jesus, whom you have 
failed to find real, personal, near, and very dear to 
you. 

The postman who brought me your letter, brought 
another from the friend you quote as "being so 
absorbed in Jesus that she forgot herself totally, 
sins and all." Now that friend, when the Master 
first sent her to me, only two years ago, was, though 
a church-member, as nearly as possible a total 
9 



130 HOW TO SEE yESC/S. 

skeptic. Her father, grandfather, and great grand- 
father, " back to the time whereunto the memory 
of man runneth not to the contrary,'' were all 
skeptics. A year or more ago, when I was press- 
ing the necessity of loving Jesus as she loved her 
mother, she replied, that "that was out of the 
question, for she had been accustomed to go to her 
mother all her life, with everything, and had been 
counseled and comforted by her times innumer- 
able j and so of course she could not love Jesus as 
she loved her mother ! " I admitted, that so long 
as she put Jesus at that disadvantage, it would 
continue impossible. But how, I said, if you were 
to give Jesus His own place — the place He claims, 
— and go always .first of all to Him with every- 
thing ? Would He not then prove Himself to be 
as kind ? aye, and an infinitely more tender as well 
as an infinitely wiser friend ? And now I trust she 
has found it so. Be frank with our dear Redeemer, 
our beloved Lord. Tell Him everything, and the 
day is not distant when you will cease questioning 
" whether you know anything of real prayer." 
I was much pleased in reading your question, 
" Don't you think God is sometimes better pleased 
with the sacrifice we make in not doing a thing, 
than He would be with the deed ? " Indeed I do. 
Thousands of times that has been my only comfort. 
For example, when I was writing " Heaven." I 
was a long, long time about it. Hundreds of times 
when my mind was in prime working order, when 



REAL PRAYER. I31 

the whole region of thought seemed thrown wide 
open to view, I was compelled to recognize as His 
will, and my duty, to lay down the pen, and go 
about these streets proving and disproving to earn 
money. Nothing but the love of Jesus, and the 
supreme desire to please Him, could have made 
me acquiescent j for I knew, from oft repeated ex- 
perience, that when the hour of respite from busi- 
ness came, the region of thought and of sentiment 
would be shrouded in shadow. 

You say, " you do not doubt that there is such 
a thing as communion with God." A word or two 
about that. On God's part, He speaks to you in 
the Bible. I hope you have adoptedj and are act- 
ing upon the rule never to begin to read that, till 
you have first asked the Holy Spirit to guide you in 
the reading ; to enable you to realize your present 
Lord, uttering His message, and also to take 
gladly and with fervent thanks His message to 
your heart. Your description of what "all the 
soul," includes, is most just, but I hope you will 
not forget that " we have this treasure in earthern 
vessels," and that we are not to write bitter things 
against ourselves because we do not invariably 
come up to that. " He knoweth our frame ; He re- 
membereth that we are dust." It wanted quarter 
to twelve last night when I finished the letter to 
M. D., and I thought of my darling James, saying 
within myself. What an honor it will be, if I can 
wear out as he did, in the Master's service. 



132 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

Not that I have any intention of doing any im- 
prudent thing, if I know it to be such. Nor did 
James know that preaching bareheaded on the 
open plain before Nashville was perilous. No, I 
mean to get the very utmost work out of this body 
and soul that the most cool-blooded calculation can 
show to be . practicable ; recognizing, of course, 
that this must include the friction, upon an emer- 
gency, of running now and then a fast train. 





XVII. 



BARRENNESS. 



*»What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." — Ps. Ivi. 3. 

" Take courage, then, my trembling soul ; 
One look from Christ will make thee whole ; 
Trust thou in Him, 't is not in vain. 
But wait and look, — and look again ! " 

YOU are hasty in your conclusion that " I 
never have any such days, — days in which 
prayer seems utterly impossible." "There hath no 
temptation taken you, but such as is common to 
man.'* It is a trial of your faith which I know only 
too well. It does not, however, appal me as it once 
did. I have had seasons, almost every year, last- 
ing from three or four days, to nearly as many 
months, in which " neither sun nor stars appeared." 
It was an intellectual obscuration. I seemed to 
have no power to fix my thoughts on God or divine 
things, and was as void of all feeling as a stone. 
Now if one depends at all on frames and feelings, 
such an experience brings dismay. On the othei 
hand, if one has learned just to look up and say^ 
Lord Jesus, I am Thine, whether in sunshine or in 
shadow ; with comfort or without, I shall go steadily 



134 ^^^ '^^ ^^^ JESUS. 

on doing what I think to be acceptable to Thee ; 
then faith grows, even as the grass grows in the night. 
The time will come when you will thank our dear 
Jesus for this too. You have no need to refer it to 
ill health j nor need you infer, as an inevitable con- 
clusion, that you have lost ground. Refer it to 
His good-will, and find in it the evidence that He 
has set His heart on your sanctification. Were 
you always to have the fervor and fluency you 
sometimes have, you might mistake what in a 
thousand instances comes of mere animal spirits, 
for pure spiritual life. At such times of privation 
one gets excellent opportunities for faithful and 
sensible self-examination. Thus we inquire, Do I 
wish to turn to any other for life, light, or joy ? Am 
I any less bent on serving my Lord ? Can I not 
truly, and with emphasis, say, " Whom have I in 
heaven but Thee ? And there is none upon earth 
I desire beside Thee." Am I not more ready than 
ever to exclaim, " If I forget Thee, let my right 
hand forget her cunning ; let my tongue cleave to 
the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Thfee before 
my chief joy.'' 

Suppose ^* one does make a little slip, or omit a 
duty here or there," it does not follow that " one 
loses so much ground that it is discouraging to try 
to think of recovering it." What one is apt to 
lose is, self-complacency. And it is, to be sure, 
vexing, just when we were ready to think that we 
were becoming pretty good, to be reminded that 



BARRENNESS. 1 3 5 

all the apparent improvement has oozed out 
through a flaw in the vessel. Now the real im- 
provement is seen in the stubbornness of the re- 
solve we immediately adopt : " Well, if I never 
, succeed, I will keep on trying till the end of time." 
" By patient continuance in well-doing," not by 
sensible fervors excited by conscious progress, 
we "shall inherit glory, honor, and immortality.'' 
Now I know you too well to have any fear that you 
will be offended by my plain dealing. Nor do I 
believe you will really adopt any such rash resolu- 
tion, as that " you will not write me again.'' In- 
stead of that, I want you to accept and use one 
of two prescriptions, according to your preference. 
If you cleave to the old practice, get a handful of 
camomile flowers and make a tea from some of 
them, to be drank cold, say a third of a tumbler, 
three mornings in succession, before breakfast. If 
homoeopathic treatment has your preference, then 
take five drops of nux in a spoonful of water be- 
fore each meal, for a day or two, and I shall be 
disappointed if you do not find yourself more 
hopeful. I wonder if any good friend ever sug- 
gested to you your duty to be as patient with 
yourself as you would with another, and allow 
time to correct all that needs correction ? " The 
trial of your faith is much more precious than of 
gold that perisheth ; " and you will come upon a 
solid and enduring foundation when you shall 



136 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

have adopted the habit of referring every manner 
of trial to the hand — to the heart, too — of the 
Refiner and Purifier, who means to present you in 
Zion perfect before God. Take the case of our 
dear N., — I say our, because we have a common 
property in all saints, though unseen, unknown in 
person, — " All things are yours," — and in this 
case peculiarly, because we have together prayed 
for her. I say, take her case and apply the prin- 
ciple, ascribing all discipline to Jesus. There are, 
most unquestionably, loving reasons, why He has 
dealt and is dealing with her in this painful way. 
On our part, it is alike a duty and a privilege to at- 
tempt to our utmost to alleviate her sad condition. 
But I have found many cases more or less resem- 
bling Cowper's, which He has permitted to con- 
tinue unalleviated for years. I think such cases 
demand of us an undoubting faith in the wisdom 
and the goodness of our Lord. It is too common 
to dispose of them by referring their origin merely 
to second causes ; to sickness, etc., etc. But that 
is want of faith. Shall any one of His disciples 
be ailing, and the Lord hath not done it ? " When 
Jesus knew that Lazarus was sick. He abode two 
days still in the same place where he was." Here 
is a lesson for us. There was then something bet- 
ter than that Lazarus should get well. So to-day, 
there is, for the time being, something better than 
that dear N. should be well. Doubtless the Lord 



BARRENNESS. 



137 



is dealing with that rebelliousness of hers. Mean- 
while it is ours to pray and watch. Have faith in 
God, for yourself, and for N., and remember it is 
no matter how " it seems." " In all these things 
we are more than conquerors through Him that 
loved us." 





XVIII. 

JESUS' TENDERNESS. 

" like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear 
Him." — Ps. ciii. 13. 

" His heart is made of tenderness — 
It melts with pitying love." 

" And as feeble babes that suffer, 

Toss and cry, and will not rest, 
Are the ones the tender mother 

Holds the closest, loves the best. 
So when we are weak and wretched, 

By our sins weighed down, distressed. 
Then it is that God's great patience 

Holds us closest, loves us best." 

THERE is one thing you fail to do, and it is a 
very serious failure. You fail to give our dear 
Lord Jesus credit for loving-tenderness. Even with 
the very little reason I have given you to recognize 
something of that in me, I should probably think 
it hard if you treated me as you treat Him. You 
cloak it, indeed, in part, under your strong disappro- 
bation of yourself. But, you are bound to consider, 
not merely what is due to your unworthiness, but 
also what is due from Himself to Himself. Now 
He owes it to his own sweet nature to compassion- 
ate and help the weak and erring. He ever acts 



JESUS' TENDERNESS. 1 39 

on that obligation. You do not give Him credit 
for it. He owes it to His own infinite wisdom and 
to His no less infinite power to do always the best 
thing j and He always does that. You are bound 
to think of what is due to Him three times for 
every once that you pore over your own ill desert. 
When you do this, you will fall to praising, as you 
ought. You magnify your failures out of all pro- 
portion to their actual importance. This is very 
plausible, but it will not stand the scrutiny of a 
close examination. True humility cannot be blind 
to the number and magnitude of its blessings. It 
will break out in recognizing acknowledgments : 
Whence is this grace of my God to me ! Oh, how 
canst Thou thus overwhelm with Thy blessing one 
who is so unworthy ? Dear Lord, my praise is all 
unworthy of Thine acceptance, but, poor as it is, 
I must praise Thee, or the very stones will cry 
out. Yesterday my faculties were shrouded in 
fog. I had to take doses of paregoric ; nothing 
serious, only a cold which had got hold some- 
where in the system, ,and brought with it surges of 
pain like the roll of the incoming sea. This 
morning when I came down the fog was all gone, 
and I thought of you as I looked up to dear Jesus, 
and just luxuriated in thinking how good and wise 
He is, and blessed and adored Him and I wished 
you might have the same serene enjoyment in com- 
munion with Him. It was no effort at all to praise 
and pray. One of my dear sons was asking me 



140 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

last evening, what He must do to become a Chris- 
tian. 

" Only love Jesus as you do your mother," I said,- 
" and give yourself to Him/' 

" I Ve tried and tried to give myself to Him, 
and nothing comes of it." 

^' How do you know that ? You might as well 
say, I Ve tried and tried to get an education, and 
nothing comes of it. You never try to do right, 
but something comes of it. Whether you see it, 
is another question. Your business is to try and 
try again. God will see, if you ask . in Jesus' 
name, that something shall come of it." Why 
don't you lay down your head on Jesus' bosom ? 
You are as welcome to this as to the air you 
breathe ? 

Still you sigh, " Oh, that I could realize Jesus ! " 
Well, dear friend, take a lesson from the wisest of 
men : ** If the iron is dull, put to the strength." If 
you have blunted faith through disuse, strive to put 
new vigor into it though strength of will. Be it 
that faith is the gift of God : I say, so much the 
better; for He will surely give it to one who is 
firmly resolved on possessing it. 

You ask me to expound a verse. I would rather 
first expound for you that other verse, " Beloved, 
if our heart condemn us not, then have we con- 
fidence toward God." Here is the illustration : I 
am a friend of yours. I come to your house with 
all the laws of polite intercourse fixed in my 



JESUS' TENDERNESS. 141 

mind : " Thou shalt do this j '' " thou shalt not do 
that." I might keep to all these rules, and have a 
weary time of it. But, as George Herbert tersely 
says, 

" How wide is all this long pretense ! 
There is in love a sweetness ready penned ; 
Copy out only that, and save expense." 

If I love you in my heart, I may or may not keep 
fully up to the rules ; love will set me at ease. My 
heart will assure me of my loyalty to you, and I 
shall have confidence in your love for me. Is not 
that plain ? Now I am ready for the verse you 
propose. If our Lord finds a loving heart in you, 
He will not condemn you. If He finds you, in a 
legal spirit relying, or trying to rely, on your obe- 
dience to rules without love in your heart, He will 
find you wanting. Is not that it ? 

" When you can't do anything," you are required 
patiently to accept that disability, and be content 
to let some one else do it. " They also serve who 
only stand and wait." I have had to accept this 
prescription many a time. But even this thing is 
one of the " all things," that work together for good 
to them that love God. Indeed, no man's dross can 
be purely purged without the refining fire of this 
particular discipline. I know there is a possibility 
of sinking into supineness ; less perhaps for such 
temperaments as ours, than for some others. Our 
discipline seems to be to keep balancing questions. 



142 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

That, though very uncomfortable, may be not un- 
profitable. It has been like a guiding star to me 
to remember, that Jesus having said, " My yoke is 
easy and my burden is light,'' it is my business 
to find it as He states it. Not to find it so, is to 
have somewhere failed of due attention to the 
terms of His service, and I must go back, searching 
each step of my way till the misstep is found. I 
have often had occasion to think, there cannot be 
in aH the world one so utterly dependent as I, upon 
immediate and ever renewed Divine help. Some 
men have genius, original endowments, upon which 
they can count in the day of need. I have ab- 
solutely nothing, but as He gives from hour to 
hour. For two months I have been wishing to 
write a few lines for our paper, but not a word 
could I write till yesterday, and in that word I 
have no confidence. Often and often it seems to 
me I shall never again write a word of any use to 
anybody. There is no other way for us, but to face 
in the right direction, and wait for marching orders. 
When the order comes. He will give the power to 
move. Your referring to Peter brings back an oc- 
currence of yesterday. Our little six-year old 
was found by Mrs. K. looking for a Testament. 
The little one sat an hour reading it. When 
mother returned to the parlor, she said, " See here, 
mamma, Peter w^ent out and wept bitterly. When 
I read such stories as that, it makes tears come in 



yESUS' TENDERNESS. 



143 



my eyes. And he said he would not deny Jesus, 
mamma, but he did." Have you a doubt that this 
little one had been putting her abortive endeavors 
to keep good resolutions along with Peter's ? Or 
that she had a fellow-feeling with him ? 





XIX. 



WEIGHING EVIDENCE. 



'* My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from Him.** — 

Psalm Ixii. 5. 

" O foolish man ! where are thine eyes ? 
How hast thou lost them in a crowd of cares." 

THERE must be a limit to our questioning ; 
some point at which, in a case calling for de- 
cision, we must come to a decision. I know not how, 
in our courts of law, there could ever be an adjudi- 
cation, if a point were never reached at which it 
should be ruled that '* the evidence is all in." When 
that point is reached, the advocate is permitted to 
make the best showing he can, — on the one side, 
and on the other, — and then the jury give their con- 
clusion on the evidence. It seems to me that you 
have gone over just this ground. And I see not 
why you should not accept the result as the decision 
of your Lord. Be it that you yourself were made 
judge in the case ; be it that you are no exception 
to the truth ; that human judges are liable to err. 
Unless conviction of error is unavoidable, it seems 
to me unwise, of your own motion, to disturb your 
decision. If a reconsideration is forced upon you, 



WEIGHING EVIDENCE. 1 45 

I should say, Take it as though it were an orig- 
inal case, now first presented ; and go into the ex- 
amination with the utmost carefulness, prayerful- 
ness, and painstaking to reach the truth. But as 
God Himself is settled and serene in His conclu- 
sions, so I have no doubt He desires, and has pro- 
vided, as a general rule, that we in our measure 
shall be in ours. I do not think we are warranted 
to assume that Jesus never suffers His disciples to 
err in judgment ; for our errors in judgment often 
furnish avenues for the admission of our most val- 
uable lessons ; lessons which rarely come home to 
us in any other way. I think we are authorized to 
believe, with the utmost confidence, that every true- 
hearted disciple is so guided by his Master that the 
conclusion reached is the conclusion most desir- 
able for him. I should be sorry indeed to doubt 
this. " We are not under the law, but under grace ; " 
and herein is the very felicity of our condition, that 
our Lord deals better with us than either law, or our 
own erring judgment, would provide. Just in pro- 
portion as you were conscious of the controlling 
idesire to do as you thought Jesus would be best 
pleased to have you, in that proportion I think you 
were and are bound to believe that He was and is 
pleased with you. To indulge any other belief, is, 
in effect, to make void His assurance that His yoke 
is easy, and His burden light. For if the sincerely 
desirous to do right cannot know what He esteems 
right, then miserable suspense and self-condemna- 
10 



146 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

tion are inevitable, and all because of the endeavor 
obediently to take His yoke ! Further, let me an- 
swer : " the questionings," of which you speak, 
come of unbelief in our Lord's guidance, veiled in 
the plausible garb of a deep sense of our own falli- 
bility. True, we are fallible ; prone to err ; but is 
the promise of God therefore to be made of no ef- 
fect ? And for whom is the promise? Is it only 
for the unerring ? for those who have least need of 
it ? Is it not also for those who need it most ? I 
think that when God presents " the two sides of a 
question so nearly balanced that you cannot for 
your life tell which indicates the path of duty," the 
point at which He aims is less the issue of the ques- 
tion, than the process — the use you make of the 
pros and the cons. I fancy the desire, evident to 
Him, and the pains you take to please Him, are the 
thing of moment and of value in His esteem. And 
this you seem to have contemplated when you ask, 
" May not one admit the possibility of a failure to 
make a wise decision, without distrusting God's 
overruling providence ? " One thing is surely plain : 
the even balance of this question is forcing on you 
a closeness and a frequency of appeal to our Lord, 
most evidently suited to make God real to you. 
" Trying to rest, but every new wave drives you out 
to sea again ; " that is, you are making the painful 
discovery that ** an evil heart of unbelief" is an ex- 
ceedingly evil heart ; and that sin is indeed the 
evil thing God declares it to be. That is a lesson, 



WEIGHING EVIDENCE. 1 47 

beloved, we all have to learn, and to learn it from 
our own experience. There is no taking this upon 
the testimony of others. We may get the theory, 
but the painful and salutary conviction apparently 
can come home to us, only as you are now expe- 
riencing. So I have found it. So you find it. And 
finding this to be so, you can and must draw the 
inference that " He cares for you," and intends de- 
veloping in you precisely what you are longing for, 
conscious love to Him. Only believe what is most 
palpably true, that He is doing this great and good 
thing for you, and in you, and how can you help 
growing in conscious love to Him ? Again, I re- 
ply, that I do not ** think it is wrong, wicked, to be 
so tossed about," so long as the tossing is so evi- 
dently the result of rowing against wind and tide. 
The " wavering " we are warned against is of quite 
another sort, namely, that of the man who has no 
such faith as impels one thus to struggle in defiance 
of winds and waves. Unsatisfactory as it is to 
yourself, I cannot doubt that you are giving far 
more satisfactory evidence of faith to Him, than 
when in the calm of unconcern to please Him. 

Lately I met a clergyman to whom I said, I have 
a pleasant remembrance of the days when you used 

to come into Church with the old doctor, and 

make those fervid addresses. *^ Pshaw ! " he re- 
olied, those were the days of my youthful inexpe- 
rience," etc. To which I made answer, mentally : 
Alas, had you but known the things which belong 



148 . HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

to the sphere for which you were made ! But hav- 
ing been translated to a prominent church, and 
bribed to adopt the notion that logic must in such 
quarters supplant simple fervid exhortation, you 
have buried the man that was, and one who 
adorned his profession, setting up in his place the 
shadow of one you were never made to be. This 
man as you see, acknowledged an error which was 
not an error, and caught at an amendment which 
was no amendment. And yet, even in this case, so 
wonderful are the compensations in the Divine 
economy, I dare not indulge an unqualified regret. 
My judgment would say, had he stuck to the hum- 
ble things which he scornfully repudiated, he would 
probably have been eminently successful. Possibly 
the success might have been prejudicial to his soul. 
As it is, his way has been full of thorns, and the 
Lord who put them there, knows for what. I don't 
believe it is well to be very anxious about remote 
results. I strongly suspect our time for solicitude 
is, to act as well as we can, with the light we have 
to-day, this hour, now. It is not certain that it is 
a want of faith that makes you go over the matter 
in your mind. That may be God's will. He may 
make it " the fiery trial which is to try you," and 
purge away your dross. It may be that this is not 
to be avoided ; that a necessity is laid upon you to 
review, and re-review the matter. I have already 
intimated one apparent reason for this, namely, to 
make you realize the necessity and the practicabil- 



WEIGHING EVIDENCE, 1 49 

ity of throwing yourself more completely on Jesus. 
Of this I am sure ; only be earnest and loyal, and 
be the result what it may, the process is sure to 
work this blessedness for you. Can you then quar- 
rel with your schooling ? If the Lord has loosened 
you from E., as He has, it is for something. It 
may, or may not be, to remove to M. 





XX. 
FAITH'S SCALE. 

" Now, Lord, I leave at Thy loved feet 
This thing which looks so near, so sweet ; 
I will not seek, I will not long — 
I almost fear I have been wrong ; 
I '11 go and work the harder, Lord, 
And wait till by some loud, clear word 
Thou callest me to Thy loved feet 
To take this thing so dear so sweet.'* 

I HAVE just taken up the eleyenth Hebrews and 
looked through it carefully hoping to find help 
in answering your inquiry. Observe how it con- 
firms what I have often said. Abel, Enoch, Noah, 
Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and 
the rest of that honored roll, each and all acted 
upon some fact known to himself as a simple mat- 
ter of faith. It is written, " These all died in faith, 
not having received the promises, but having seen 
them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and 
embraced them." Here, it seems to me, is the very 
gist of the thing. Let us apply it to yourself. You 
do not see Jesus with your eyes ; you do not get 
written letters from Him ; but you fully believe in 
Him as a true and constant friend ; as present al- 
ways ; as arranging all your fortunes ; as ordering 



FAITH'S SCALE, 15I 

every incident in your life, as being as simply and 
truly pleased by your endeavors to please, as your 
husband, or myself, or any friend you have. Now 
it seems to me, that your treating Him as thus real, 
and your persistent endeavors in everything to please 
Him, must inevitably issue as it. did with Enoch : 
" Before he was translated he had this testimony, 
that he pleased God." So it must be with you ; 
only it seems important to this result, that you 
should, without waiting for the testimony or for any- 
thing else, simply and at once, believe and rejoice 
that He is pleasable. Take the comfort of the con- 
viction, which is fully warranted by His own lan- 
guage, that you do please Him. 

I am quite sure that many Christians err in 
making their measure of success in accomplishing 
their endeavors, the measure of their faith and of 
their acceptableness to Jesus. We do not so judge 
of the friend who struggles against wind and stream 
to serve us. Of course where faith exists it will 
work and improve, but this improvement, in the very 
nature of the case is not and cannot be instan- 
taneously complete. What then 1 Must we not 
indulge, or can we not possess joy and peace in 
believing ? What says the Apostle Paul, speaking 
by the Holy Ghost ? *' Therefore being justified 
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ." Hear also John, the beloved : 
" Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have 
we confidence toward God." Whatever you exer- 



152 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

cise faith in Jesus for, in that you will be accepted ; 
which is," I apprehend, the true intent of " Whatso- 
ever ye ask believing, ye shall receive." And is 
not this incomparably more and better than merely 
receiving literally the precise thing you ask ? I 
should be sorry to be compelled to believe that I 
could stand only on the literal ground ; that I must 
ask with unerring accuracy for just what I need ; 
that I must believe that I shall receive just that and 
nothing more, or other. I believe I never made a 
truer or more acceptable prayer than when, in 1833, 
I poured out my soul in this prayer : " O Lord, give 
me I know not what ! Give me what thou seest 
me to need. I am sensible, deeply, painfully sen- 
sible of need ; but what I need, I know not ; Thou 
knowest. Take me. Lord, just as I am, and make 
me just what thou wouldst have me be, for Christ's 
dear sake." 

You can see how this prayer necessitated faith. 
You can see that by placing me in this condition of 
extreme ignorance. He placed me in the condition 
most favorable to faith. I knew neither what to 
expect, nor when to expect it. That did not pre- 
clude, but rather predisposed to affectionate trust 
and childlike confidence in His ordering of events 
and results. You cannot but see that a childlike 
faith honors God more than any other thing can ; 
and thence you derive the strongest possible argu- 
ment, when you plead, " Lord, increase my faith." 
Just consider the absolute impossibility that the 



FAITH'S SCALE. 153 

Father will refuse anything that will honor Jesus. 
And consider what is implied in asking in the name 
of Jesus. The asking of a disciple in the interest 
of Jesus is Jesus' own asking. When the orderly 
of General Grant, goes to government for anything, 
it is the Commander-in-Chief who asks. True the 
orderly himself may be personally agreeable to the 
Secretary of War, but the request is that of his su- 
perior, and it comes to the government with the 
full force of the Commander-in-Chief's official posi- 
tion. So every prayer of yours, offered in the name 
and interest of Jesus, has the full force of the ask- 
ing of God's own dear Son. In answer to your 
question I reply : Most assuredly your hungering, 
longing desire for the realized presence of Jesus, 
is His own gift, and an earnest, aye, an actual in- 
stallment of the thing desired. " Blessed are they 
that hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled." 
Filled with what ? With just w^hat the Lord meant 
by righteousness ; which in this place I have no 
doubt is right-ness ; that is acceptableness with 
Him. This is not perfection absolute, but lovable- 
ness. And what makes us lovable to Him who 
looks on the heart? Evidently a heart-desire to 
please Him. And how will the fulfillment of this 
promise be evidenced ? By increased hunger and 
thirst ; so that the more God grants your petition, 
the more sensible will be your hunger, the more 
insatiable your thirst. As to " the sense of Christ's 
nearness," it seems to me that the direct pursuit 



154 ^ HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

of it, like the direct pursuit of health, often baffles 
the pursuer. There was a deep and sound' philos- 
ophy in the answer of the child, to " What makes 
everybody love you ? " "I don't know, unless it is 
because I love everybody." Loving Jesus, and try- 
ing in all things to promote His interests and wishes 
must inevitably result in the consciousness of His 
nearness and love. Clearly this is entirely another 
thing from legality and works of purchase. Miss 
D.'s quotation, *' Simply a belief in Christ's words 
because they are His words," ought to be all-suffi- 
cient ; but, unfortunately, like a text of Scripture, 
it may mean one thing or another in the several 
minds using it. 





XXI. 



FAITH'S DISCIPLINE. 

"What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." — 

John xiii. 7. 

" And of the multitude, 
No man but in his hand 

Holds some great gift misunderstood, 
Some treasure for whose use or good 
His ignorance sees no demand." 

YOUR wisdom is to renew and redouble your 
endeavor just to obey the commands of Jesus 
and make no clamor for comfort. 

As to Christ's letting you go, you should not say 
or think it ; it is so unjust to Him. He will never 
let you go, while you desire Him to keep you. You 
are one of His sheep ; of whom He says, " My 
sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they 
follow me ; and I give unto them eternal life; and 
they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck 
them out of my hand. My Father which gave them 
me, is greater than all j and no man is able to pluck 
them out of my Father's hand." I have no doubt 
that you dwell a great deal more on your unworthi- 
ness, than on His generosity. How dare you do 
that ? If He chooses to magnify His grace to the 



156 ^OW TO SEE JESUS. 

unworthy, who are you that you should presume to 
exalt your ill-desert above His grace ? 

" You cannot see that you search for Him with 
all your heart." 

Doubtless j but there are many other things 
which you cannot see : yet, being outside of them, 
you can believe. In this case you have too large 
an interest in the result to be admitted as a witness. 
You cite " inability to pray," it being, remember, 
the month of April. Well if you have been able to 
pray through the winter, you have been favored 
above many. If you could have looked into my 
parlor this morning at half-past six o'clock ; into 
my heart, I was going to say, but I might as well 
say, into my slipper, you would have seen a form of 
godliness without the power. I was trying to pray, 
but an ape looks more like a man, than my en- 
deavor looked like prayer. It was an utter failure. 
I was willing to think that something of it might be 
imputed to a chest utterly weakened by a cold. I 
shook myself ; I walked up and down the room ; 
there was nothing else I desired to do but praise 
and pray. But praise and pray I could not ; for I 
had no more command of my brains than I had of 
Sherman's soldiers. Now this, which with me is an 
occasional experience, albeit it sometimes lasts from 
three to six weeks, and which, in its effects is much 
like a state of suspended animation, arising from the 
change from cold to heat, may with you be the more 
permanent result of a highly nervous temperament. 



FAITH'S DISCIPLINE. 1 57 

I do not mean fidgetty nervousness. I enter warmly 
into your strong expressions, for I have often said 
within myself, There never was such an utter imbe- 
cile and wreck of a man as I am ! A breath of 
wind, or a degree of heat, is my master. 

It is a good preparation for larger usefulness. Be 
not discouraged. Hope on. *' At evening time it 
shall be light." It is plain to me that our Lord 
means to make something of you. I recognize His 
method. He is emptying your vessel in a way that 
appals you ; but it is only that He may fill you with 
all the fullness of the blessed God. I have won* 
dered over the masses of professors of religion, as 
you do, and wondered how they managed to go 
round and round, like the horse in the mill, for 
twenty, thirty, fifty years, some of them, apparently 
with no aspiration for enlargement. 

There is faith in being troubled. If you had none, 
you too might be imconcerned. Now do not be 
cheated by Satan, as our first mother was. He 
will, very likely, be asking you, " Well, what have 
you gained by all your endeavors to wake up and 
be in earnest ? Why not sleep on and be content 
as others are ? What good have all these aspira- 
tions of yours done you ? " Tell him for answer 
" Get thee behind me, Satan.'' 

One explanation of your experiences is, perhaps, 
that God may discipline me through you. I am 
obliged to own myself at my wit's end. I cannot 
answer all questions. I cannot answer yours. I 



IS8 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

am convicted of ignorance. I must go humbly and 
ask Jesus. But suppose you were a chained slave, 
would it not be right for you to hold a lamp for 
those whose limbs were free t Will you not use 
such freedom as you have ? 

I got back from New York on Monday night after 
a week of real rest, and my Bible class on Tues- 
day afternoon took the benefit of it, for thoughts 
and words came like water from a mountain spring. 
But I took a little cold that same afternoon, and 
since then all the rest in New York goes for noth- 
ing. I tell you this because it reminds me that you 
^* do not permit yourself to rest because you do not 
feel thus and so." Now I apprehend He requires 
you to rest unconditionally in Him ; that is, with- 
out insisting that you must first feel thus or so, I 
am aware of how you will natujally reason about 
this. You will begin with saying, Surely, I ought to 
be more in earnest. I ought to be able to see that 
I search for Him with all my heart. I ought to find 
freedom and even delight in prayer. As long as 
you go on in this way, — I say it diffidently, for I 
am not sure that I am meeting your need, — it seems 
to me that you will perhaps, unconsciously, be 
seeking a righteousness in yourself, before you will 
fully accept the grace offered. But suppose, see- 
ing you find nothing satisfactory in yourself, you 
lust turn to our Father and ask Him to find all in 
Jesus j and to accept you for His sake ; to take you 
just as you are, and make you what He wishes you 



FAITH'S -DISCIPLINE. 1 59 

to be. If you tell me, " Why, I have done that a 
thousand times \ " then I say. Nevertheless, the 
knot in your problem is somewhere hereabouts. In 
your endeavors absolutely to give yourself to Jesus, 
you have somehow failed to give Him your trust. 
The misapprehension about feeling I look upon as 
almost universal ; that is, there is a preconceived 
idea of a successful act of faith, involving very pe- 
culiar, if not overwhelming emotion ; and a persua- 
sion that if this be not realized, nothing is accom- 
plished. Now the truth of the matter is, men catch 
sight of Jesus from every possible angle of vision, 
according to their endless varieties of need, see- 
ing Him as just the Saviour needed for their own 
particular exigency : and the kind and degrees of 
emotion are as various as the peculiarities of cir- 
cumstances. And so it follows that almost every 
preconceived idea is wholly unlike the actual expe- 
rience. I suggest that for one week you endeavor, 
as far as possible, to repudiate and exclude all 
thoughts of yourself, and devote yourself to thoughts 
of your Lord. You would have to take some pains 
to provide your occupation. Give a day to the 
contemplation of Him as Creator ; taking the first 
chapter of Genesis, first chapter of Colossians, and 
first chapter of Hebrews as your guide, and fourteen 
verses of the first chapter of John. The next day 
might be given to His justice. Rev. xv. 3. Another 
to His mercy, Ps. ciii. 13-18. Another to His self- 



l60 now TO SEE JESUS. 

sacrifice, Is. liii. ; John iii. i6. Evidently a week 
spent in this way, with the intelligent design of 
subordinating self to Christ, would, with the bless- 
ing of the Holy Spirit, make a deep and lasting 
impression. 





XXII. 



FRUSTRATING GRACE. 

** I do not frustrate the grace of God." — Gal. ii. 21. 

" His wisdom ever waketh, 
His sight is never dim : 
He knows the way He taketh, 
And I will walk with Him." 

" And if there be a weight upon my breast 
Some vague impression of the day foregone, 

Scarce knowing what it is, I fly to Thee 
And lay it down." 

WITH the desire to comfort you, I told you 
yesterday that as you felt, so I felt ; that I 
had no brains, and could not pray. It was a physi- 
cal impossibility. With the same desire and design I 
want now to tell you that God having brought warm 
weather out of the South, to-night my hindrance is 
all gone, and I can pray. In this instance you see 
it was a matter of degrees of temperature. The 
same weather which merely thaws me out, may be 
wilting you. Nevertheless, hope thou in God, for 
he is the health of thy countenance and thy God, 
and you shall yet praise Him for all His manner of 
dealing with you. All this forenoon my thoughts 
were following your questions, and seeing, as 1 
II 



1 62 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

thought, a line of light running through them. But 
all the while I was being " driven up and down in 
the Adria " of business ; and fearing just what has 
come upon me, namely, that when the leisure came, 
the thoughts would all be gone. So they are ; and 
that is one of my keenest trials j the more interest- 
ing has to give way to the inexorable. But no ; 
here is one of the thoughts given back to me ; not 
a new thought, but one of vital moment ; it is that 
no small part of your disappointment and sorrow 
arises from your meddling with the past and the 
future. Practically you are ever denying that the 
blood of Jesus cleanseth. For substance you are 
ever reasoning thus : " Yes, oh yes, in the abstract, 
and for others, I see that it is all true. But here is 
the peculiarity in my case, that I do thus and so, 
and therefore cannot expect the Lord to favor me." 
And thus you frustrate the grace of God ; you make 
His promises of non-effect through your philosophy. 
You must give up all that. Nothing is of force to 
neutralize His word. The blood of Christ can and 
does wash away your sins. That is settled. Then, 
after having confessed the past, and received His 
forgiveness, you have no right to dishonor Him by 
reviving the past, as though His blood had not suf- 
ficient adequacy. As to the future, it is written, 
" My God shall supply all your need." He will 
love and keep you to the end, and you have noth- 
ing at all to do with the future. If you commit 
your way unto Him now, the promise is, that He will 



FRUSTRATING GRACE. 1 63 

bring it to pass, " What time I am afraid, I will 
trust in the Lord.*' Can you possibly find a better 
example ? If your fears come upon you, run to 
Him. He is a high rock, a strong tower, a sure 
defense, and refuge. It is Satan that drives you 
first to the past, and then to the future. There is 
no resting-place in the one or in the other. But in 
the Lord Jehovah there is everlasting strength, 
present strength. Renew your self-consecration to 
him as often as you are disquieted. That is just 
putting yourself and all your disquiets into His 
hands — precisely what He wishes, invites, com- 
mands you to do. 

Thank you for " Little Ballard's Praying and Res- 
ignation." I am not ashamed to own to you that it 
brought the tears into my eyes, to the serious hin- 
drance 'of my reading. I know nothing more beau- 
tiful than these illustrations of faith in children. I 
know an instance, equally beautiful, of the son of 
my friends, Mr. and Mrs. M. He had set his heart 
on going to his aunt in Wisconsin. His mother re- 
peatedly replied to his entreaties, " It is impossi- 
ble ; the season is advanced, and I know of no one 
going out, by whom I could send you." At last 
she said, " Go and tell Jesus your desire. If He 
wishes you to go. He will open the way." The 
little fellow took her at her word, and pressed his 
^uit, and Jesus opened the way, and he went to 
Wisconsin. This is but a meagre outline of the 
facts. Once Mrs. M. would have been backward 



164 JIOW TO SEE yESUS. 

to give such counsel to her son. Once she rebelled 
against the will of God, when He took an infant. 
Now she takes everything from Him lovingly, 
walking through all sorts of trials serenely, stayed 
on Him. Your " dim idea of such a life of purest 
joy " is not in the least dim to my eye. Most un- 
doubtedly you are right in your conjecture that 
Jesus painted that ideal in your soul, both to raise 
your desire and stimulate your endeavors for it. In 
my judgment, you are not far from it now. You 
think " you do not aim at being a devoted Chris- 
tian." Doubtless he who attains most of such de- 
votion to Christ is least able to esteem himself the 
Christian he ought to be, because the attainment 
must always light the way to something beyond, 
which ought to be attained. So St. Paul testifies, 
Phil. iii. 13. Assuredly " our views of consecration 
do expand as we advance." It is most reasonable 
to long to be able to say, " My Beloved is mine." 
Persist, and you will assuredly succeed ; nay, you 
are succeeding day by day, and presently your 
eyes will be opened, as were the eyes of Elisha's 
servant at Dothan. Become simply natural ; like 
a little child, if you can ; for I confess to you, I 
sometimes find it a very difiicult attainment. I had 
2^ lesson as I was w^alking over to C. on Sunday 
night, anxious as to whether I could possibly say 
anything to benefit the children. 

" What right have you to be anxious ? " 

I answered, " None, Lord j " and gave it up. 



FRUSTRATING GRACE. 165 

It was He who put the question, and He an- 
swered His own question. 

Doubtless the reason "you do not thank Him 
for the Atonement," " His Word," " Himself," is 
that the object is too large, too multiform. You 
do thank Him for the gleams of light and love 
from each, as you are enabled to catch them. Be 
thankful that you are prompted and enabled to do 
that. Taste one verse at a time, and thank Him 
for it. Ask the Comforter to enable you to get the 
utmost profit out of it. 





XXIIL 



GOD'S PART AND OURS. 

* For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good 
pleasure." — Phil. ii. 13. 

" The look, the fashion of God*s ways 
Lovers life-long study are ; 
She can be bold, and guess, and act, 
When reason would not dare." 

I DO not wonder that you sometimes get con- 
fused betwixt the Lord's part of the work, and 
your own. If Methusaleh was a thinking man, I 
would give something to know how far he had 
thought up on that subject in his nine hundred and 
sixty-ninth year. Apropos of God's providence in 
providing boarding-places in the summer, in the 
country, a minister's wife said to me yesterday, " I 
believe you think the Lord has always found one 
for you, but I think He has left us to shift for our- 
selves." I replied, " Now why do you say that ? 
Why not believe in Him at least as much as you be- 
lieve in me ? '' 

" Because I don't see Him." 

" But I should be sorry to think that you trust 
me only when you see me." 

" Ah, but that seems different." 



GOD'S PART AND OURS. 16/ 

I might have told her, had it been quite modest, 
" I always ask the Lord to send me where I can do 
most good; but, on your own acknowledgment, 
you don't do that How then can you expect Him 
to take special care of you ? " 

Yet I am by no means without my problems. 
For example, I had predetermined to push certain 
business matters to-day, to the advantage of my 
purse. But I found that an article written for the 
" Recorder " was arrested when half set up because 
some statements needed qualifying. In my wis- 
dom, or folly, I decided that that article must be 
put through, in season for the occasion for which it 
was written, as being of more account to Christ and 
His cause than the money. Now no business man 
would justify me in this. I don 't feel sure that 
our Lord Himself looks upon me as justified in it. 
Sometimes I am pulled in pieces between the de- 
sire to do all possible good, and the desire so to 
perform life's work-a-day business that none may 
have right to charge that I am less than true to 
myself and family in that.' If there are disciples of 
Christ who have no experience of this perplexity, I 
do not envy, but pity them. 

About your friend who says foolish things, and ex- 
cites your wonder, why she is left to do so ; I can see 
a way through that. One of the most valuable attain- 
ments we ever make is humble penitence. What 
teaches this so effectually as our own blunders .? 
What if our Lord means that she shall sink low in 



1 68 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

her own esteem, through the discovery of her folly ? 
In one way I shall dissent from brother G.'s way of 
putting it : I don't believe *' the Lord expected she 
would behave herself with propriety." He knew 
she would not But may He not have purposed to 
overrule that impropriety to bring her into right re- 
lations to Himself ? What would become of us 
were we cast off every time we err ? Oh the long- 
suffering kindness of our Lord ! Mr. G. is right • 
the Lord does require us to behave well. And yet, 
again, it is just as true, that we do so only as He 
works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. 
You say " you want to be known as a Christian 
without effort," that is as a spontaneous Christian. 
Well, keep on desiring. " Blessed are they that 
hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled." 

You are hearing much of the labors of Mr. Moody 
of Chicago. Let me tell you something of him. 
His history may well encourage you to hope in the 
Lord, and in His unstmted grace. In utter disre- 
gard of the judgment of his friends he left his home, 
a benighted town in western Massachusetts and 
came to Boston. He was unconscious of depend- 
ence upon God. Two weeks' vain pursuit of a sit- 
uation, humbled his pride of self-sufficiency to the 
extent of willingness to speak with his uncle, a 
pious man, who knew how to be silent, and when to 
speak. 

Said Moody, " I have wasted two weeks here to 
no purpose, and now I 'm going to New York to 
seek an opening." 



GOD'S PART AND OURS. 1 69 

"Yes," replied his uncle, "and there you will 
waste more weeks ; for here there is some one, if 
asked, to speak for you, there, not one.'' 

Well, T can't do anything here ; I 've tried in 
vain." 

"You have not yet asked me." 

" Have you got any vacancy ? " 

" That depends upon circumstances. I have 
a position I could give you. But I will not give it 
to you except upon your agreement to comply with 
my conditions ; one of which is this : that you shall 
go regularly to Mount Vernon Church, and into the 
Sabbath-school." 

The consent was given, and Moody himself told 
me this : " My young companion took me to a seat 
in the gallery. When the sermon began I fell 
asleep. My companion jogged me and pointed to 
the minister. I endeavored to listen for a little, and 
fell asleep again. Again my companion aroused me. 
This time I kept awake, and listened." He went 
also into the Sabbath-school ; but was mortified in 
the discovery of the superior acquaintance with the 
Bible of persons considerably younger than himself. 
His teacher, who was at that time in my employ, 
told me that the first perceptible awakening of M.'s 
intellect came when the class were studying the 
career of Moses. He suddenly looked up and 
said : " This Moses, I suppose, was what you 'd 
call a smart man, was n't he ? " He was carefully 
and faithfully followed up by his teacher. After a 



I/O HOfV TO SEE JESUS, 

time he presented himself to the church committee, 
expressing his desire to join the church. Ten of 
us, with the most kindly interest and good wishes 
for this new-comer, and with all the intelligence 
we were able to bring to bear upon him, failed to 
elicit any satisfactory evidence that he even knew 
what was regeneration. He could not say he 
thought Christ had done anything for himself. Ap- 
parently he knew no more of Jesus than did Festus 
when he informed Agrippa that the accusers of 
Paul had certain questions against him of their own 
superstition, and of one Jesus who was dead, whom 
Paul affirmed to be alive. It might indeed be 
doubted, whether Moody held with Festus, or with 
Paul. The committee judged it wise to wait till 
M. obtained some intelligent apprehension of the 
Lord. Meanwhile several members of the commit- 
tee, concurring with his teacher, invited him to 
their homes, and like Aquila and Priscilla, ex- 
pounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. 
This delaying of his admission for six months, or 
more. Moody himself assured me, " was the best 
thing we ever did." No doubt in God's hands it 
contributed to that freedom from self-conplacency 
which now so endears this dear brother to all who 
desire and pray for his largest usefulness. He re- 
mained with us only about two years. No doubt 
he was gathering all the while materials for future 
use. But God's gracious intent to make him a 
chosen vessel, did not reveal itself till he had re- 



GOD'S PART AND OURS, I /I 

moved to Chicago. There the Lord met him in the 
way, and anointed him for His work. If you ask, 
Why thus anoint him and not me ? I can answer 
only, Even so, Lord, for so it seemed good to Thee. 
Walking the streets of that city, surveying the pit 
falls for the unwary, and the fearful sluiceways to 
perdition through the innumerable saloons, drink- 
ing, gambling, dancing, etc., the Spirit of God came 
mightily upon him. Meeting a stranger, he impet- 
uously demanded of him, What can we do for 
Chicago ? The stranger, he told me, stared, as one 
saying within himself, " A crazy man, no doubt ! " 
Nothing daunted, he hired a pew in church, and 
then a second, and filled these with recruits rescued 
from saloons. " But I found," he said, that I was fill- 
ing a vessel with holes ; they did not look after my 
men. Then I hired a small room and taught them 
myself, then a larger and a larger room, till I had 
one of the largest saloons in Chicago." Thus he 
came to hear his call to drop secular business, and 
devote his life to saving souls. Two youth, sons 
of a distinguished lawyer, cleaved to him, spite of 
their father^s positive prohibition. The father knew 
of Jesus perhaps as much as did Festus, and cared 
as little. But this influence of Mr. Moody on his 
sons was an enigma he was curious to look into. 
He posted off to search for, and found Mr. M. 

" My boys, Mr. Moody, have caused me many 
anxious hours ; but though I have known them all 
their days, you have acquired more influence over 



172 now TO SEE JESUS, 

them in six weeks than I have ever had. I don't 
understand it. I want to know about it.''' 

" Oh," said Mr. M., " that 's very simple ! It's 
only the love of Jesus ; do you know anything of 
that .? " 

" No j he must confess he did not." 

" Well, you must come to my meetings, and I will 
tell you." 

"But I 'm driven with work, and don't know when 
and where they are." 

" Never mind ; next meeting I '11 send the boys 
to show you the way." And he came, and came 
again. 

Since then Mr. M.'s history has been pretty well 
and widely known. He lives by faith on the Son of 
God ; and like a child in his Father's house. Aye, 
and Christ lives in him. I thank the dear Lord that 
M. and I have long been friends. I am specially 
indebted to the Master and to brother M. that he 
has more than once put me up to work I might not 
else have thought to do. One day describing a cer- 
tain case to him, I read the letter I had written to 
meet it. He exclaimed, " I must have that. 
Promise me you '11 make a tract of it." And so I 
did. " Seeing Jesus." Again, passing one day, 
through Scollay Square, oppressed with the sense 
of my inefficiency, and no less with my incompe- 
tency, some one slipped his arm through mine, and 
looking up I found brother M. " I 've got some 
work for you," he said. " Alas, I was bemoaning 



GOD'S PART AND OURS. 1 73 

myself that there was no work in me." So then at 
his request and for a particular use I wrote "A 
Word to the Sorrowing." 

Shall I express sorrow that you have been ill, 
when our beloved Jesus sent the illness ? I was 
not sorry myself when I was so ill that my physician 
came three times a day for a week, and did not ex- 
pect me to live. I think it is good to live, because 
there is work, loving work to do for our Lord and 
for His lambs. But I am not in love with life. 
Nor yet am I so spiritual, to-day at any rate, as to 
be fit to comment on 2 Cor. v. 8. I suspect that 
the want of physical stamina more than anything 
else makes me at times long for the end. I do ab- 
hor sin ; and do feel that it must be ineffably 
blessed to have done with it forever. But I cannot 
quite find the Apostle's declaration true for me, that 
" whilst we are at home in the body we are absent 
from the Lord." Does he not say to the Ephesians, 
" Ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but 
fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household 
of God, an habitation of God through the Spirit " ? 
I am not sure that he may not have meant some- 
thing which I can respond to. If he meant to say, 
as he does elsewhere say, that " we are strangers," 
all true Christians, and that those who make them- 
selves at home in the body, are absent from the 
Lord, I could assent to that, easily. But I am not 
at home in the body. I feel myself only a lodger 
for a night, and nothing keeps me from singing per- 
petually, 



174 ^OW TO SEE JESUS. 

" To Jesus, the crown of my life 
My soul is in haste to be gone," 

but the obvious disloyalty of preferring my comfort 
to His will and work. Beyond a question it must 
be far better to be with Jesus in sinless holiness, 
and so in perfect oneness ; for that is the very 
blessedness of heaven. But I have not finished the 
work He has given me to do. I have not learned 
the lessons, nor acquired the virtues He placed me 
here to acquire. Nor can I possibly believe it to be 
better to depart and be with Christ, till this is done. 
I know it is a common thought that more can be 
learned in heaven in an hour, than on earth in a 
year ; but I am firm in the conviction that such 
common thoughts, as commonly understood, are 
without a shadow of warrant. God has declared 
that all things work together for good to them that 
love Him. Among these " all things," our deten- 
tion on the earth is most surely to be reckoned. 
The skillful cultivator transplants his shrubs and 
trees in their best season ; of which he alone can 
be the judge. So, and much more, our Lord alone 
can know the best season for our transplanting. 
Therefore I would not dare be " in haste to be 
gone." Possibly the Apostle's meaning was, that 
the presence of Jesus, or to be with Jesus, is in it- 
self, or absolutely, far better than any condition 
known to us this side of that heavenly presence. 
It appears to me that that may be quite true, and 
yet not involve any such inference as that it would 



GOD'S PART AND OURS. 1 75 

be far better, to-day, for me or for you to depart 
and be with Christ. Beyond a question, from the 
hour of our receiving the Holy Ghost He dwells 
with us and in us ; charging Himself with our edu- 
cation, leading us step by step to the acquisition of 
each lesson provided for us in the Divine pro- 
gramme ; and then we graduate on earth, and are 
admitted to a higher and celestial school. Accord- 
ing to the Bible figure, we are " gathered as a shock 
of corn fully ripe, to the garner of the Lord." 





XXIV. 
PERPLEXITIES. 

* Call upon me in the day of trouble : I will deliver thee, and thou shalt 
glorify me." — Ps. 1. 15. 

" There are in this loud stunning tide 

Of human care and crime, 
With whom the melodies abide 

Of the everlasting chime ; 
Who carry music in their heart 

Through dusky lane and wrangling mart 
Plying their daily toil with busier feet, 
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat." 

" O eyes that are weary, and hearts that are sore ! 
Look off unto Jesus ; now sorrow no more ! " 

COMING into town this morning, I fell to think- 
ing upon the perplexities our Lord God sends 
us all. And His good Spirit the Comforter, com- 
forted me with some thoughts I wish to share with 
you. Doubtless the cry, " Why am I thus ? " 
sooner or later comes up out of the suffering ex- 
perience of every child of God. For twenty-five 
years, with intervals long or short, of peace and 
quietness, I have had these experiences of extreme 
perplexity, and consciousness of being at my very 
wits' end, and void of all wisdom to meet the de- 
mands of a seeming emergency and crisis. The 



PERPLEXITIES. 1 77 

emergencies of twenty-five years, as you see, have 
not only come, but also gone, and leave me un- 
scathed. While impending they have often seemed 
fateful as destiny. They were but our Heavenly 
Father's helps to a clearer vision of Jesus, and to 
more perfect sympathy with Him. In His hands 
they have proved nothing but blessings. And I 
am able to testify for Him who said, " Seek first 
the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and 
all these things shall be added unto you," that His 
word is true. So have I done ; and so have I 
found. But this morning the thought was : God's 
method with me is not to be judged or estimated 
by any visible or known adaptation to a particular 
good result ; but to be accepted as His ; and as 
the most advantageous, simply because it is His j 
and because that which it secures will surely be 
the best and most desirable, and must needs be. I 
am at no loss to conjecture how this may be. I 
can easily believe, first, that my Lord desires to 
bring me into the most perfect sympathy and one- 
ness with Him. Second, that this consists pecul 
iarly (i) in a profound and unalterable deference 
to the Father's will ; (2) in great tenderness of 
sensibility towards the burden-bearing, and the 
suffering. And, third, that He would bring me 
into the exercise of a faith in Him that nothing can 
disturb. But to know whether a tree, or a Chris- 
tian faith, can be uprooted, or blown down, it is 
needful that it should be blown upon, most furi- 
12 



178 BOW TO SEE yESUS. 

ously, by every wind of heaven. If it stands 
bravely through it all, we have an evident a:nd most 
encouraging result, not to be made evident and en- 
couraging in any other way. 

Let us bring this close home to our souls. You 
and I have problems which as yet we are unable to 
solve. We are held in suspense. We can wait ; 
looking up and saying, and feeling too. Dearest 
Lord, I thank Thee for this suspense. It throws 
me more directly, frequently, constantly on Thee. 
It bids me cry out of the depths of my heart, " My 
soul, wait thou only upon God ; for my expectation 
is from Him. He only is my rock and my salva- 
tion." In John xvii. 20, 21, Jesus prays for us, that 
we all may be one, " as Thou, Father, art in me, and 
I in Thee ; that they also may be one in us." And 
in John xv. 9, He says, "As the Father hath loved 
me, so have I loved you." Now I am going to 
believe that, just because Jesus said it. And be- 
lieving that, I may well rest, firm as the everlasting 
hills, upon His love; believing that if anywhere 
among all the inexhaustible treasures of my Lord, 
there were a single thing better for me than the 
things which try me most, then I should have it. 
Now I feel the better for telling you this, which I 
know is true : and I hope we both shall be the 
stronger to endure, all the days of our appointed 
time, till our change come. When an almost irre- 
pressible longing to go comes upon me, I cannot 
but demand of myself, How dare you, seeing God 



PERPLEXITIES. 1 79 

has given you so many precious souls who are com- 
forted by you with the very comfort wherewith you 
yourself are comforted of God ? And so I appeal 
to Him, to strengthen me to hold on, and hold out, 
to the end ; striving to hold to other lips the cup of 
consolation He hands me for them. 

How blessed it is to be a minister and an 
apostle of Jesus Christ ! Blessed that we are such, 
you and I ; albeit innocent of the laying on of 
human hands ! Paul said to the Corinthian Chris- 
tians, " Ye see your calling, brethren.'' Alas, it is 
to be feared that many Christians do not see it ! 
To be called of God, and sent by Jesus Christ, 
were it only to a single soul, is something infinitely 
superior to being ordained of men. Would to God 
that all ordained ministers were thus conscious 
of their heavenly calling. Such consciousness 
would deliver them from a thousand ignoble anxie- 
ties, jealousies, and evil-surmisings. Upon careful 
reading of some of the articles in " The Witness," 
it seems to me that I find ground for fear that some 
of its writers are inclined to press their favorite idea 
beyond its proper limits. Thus, for example, it is 
quite true that we find persons in circumstances 
which make it proper to say to them. According to 
my apprehension of your position, the one thing re- 
quired of you, is to believe that a full, present salva- 
tion is offered to you by our Lord Jesus, and that 
you should now accept both it and Him. Mean- 
while it is just as true of other persons that their 



l80 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

circumstances call for a different communication. 

While the former class are intensely concerned to 

see Jesus, and their minds are fully set on forsaking 

all for Him, the latter are comparatively careless 

of finding Him, and by no means resolved on 

making any considerable sacrifice for Him. And 

I think our Lord has made it no inconsiderable 

part of our duty, to search out the actual condition 

of these different classes, and with much prayer 

and painstaking, to prescribe their appropriate 

course to each. Can we escape the conviction that 

the larger part of professing Christians do not 

even propose to be candidates for the highest joys, 

so freely offered ? Alas, I have found more than 

one or two, who have declined joys conditioned 

upon self-denying and persistent service ! 

You ask. How can one who is more conscious of 

hunger, and thirst, and need, than of anything else, 

praise God as one of His children can who can 

adopt the couplet, 

" With every longing satisfied, 
And full salvation blessed." 

Why, my dear friend, praise Him for that hun- 
ger and thirst. It is one of God's best gifts. Jesus 
declares it blessed. It is the sure precursor of be- 
ing filled with all the fullness of the blessed God. 
" Must you wait until you reach * love's own coun- 
try,' before you can drink such refreshing draughts 
from * The deep sweet well of love ? ' " No, in- 
deed ! For our Immanuel says, " Ho, every one 



PERPLEXITIES, l8l 

that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that 
hath no money ; come ye, buy and eat ; yea, come, 
buy wine and milk without money and without 
price." When President Edwards was exercised 
with the same longing to be filled with Jesus, he 
resolved to do all in his power to encourage, in- 
crease, and intensify the longing. Doubtless that 
is just what our Lord would have you do. Jesus 
is ** the rose of Sharon ; the lily of the valleys ; 
the chiefest among ten thousand \ the one al- 
together lovely." " His name is as ointment poured 
forth." The more you cherish Him, the more you 
will find Him so. You ask, " Will He always deal 
thus with me 1 " Meaning, I presume, " Will He 
always hide Himself from me ? " " Must I wait till 
I wear my crown, before I taste the sweetness of 
His love ? " 

I answer. Every hour He seems to keep you 
waiting, He is but detaching you from everything 
that holds you back. His arms are wide extended. 
You may come into them this moment; and act- 
ually do come into His arms to the extent of your 
desire. There is a more perfect union for which 
you are longing, and towards which you are tending. 
There is no holding back on His part ; but your 
eyes are in part holden. You do but see men as 
trees walking. This very moment you may, un- 
checked, lay your head upon His bosom, and there 
rest forever. It is what He would have you do. 
Long delay to do this, has infused distrust ; has 



1 82 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

made you timid ; has led you to reason endlessly, 
" If I were only thus or so ; if I had only done this 
or that j then might I cast myself on Him^ and take 
my fill of love divine." You are free to come just 
as you are ; but so long as you doubt, you will not 
come. The moment will come, you are pressing 
earnestly towards it, when you will let go the 
last doubt, and rest on Him.^ The time draws 
near. When it comes, it will be the gift of God. 
You will know it to be so, and, ^' Or ever you are 
aware, your soul will make you like the chariots of 
Amminadib." Canticles vi. 12. You will be borne 
along through " love's own country," in the bosom 
of the Lord of the country, with fullness of joy, as 
on the wings of the wind. " Will Jesus be tired 
of you ? " What, He who says, " Thou shall love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and 
strength ? " Who says also, " If a man love me, 
he will keep my words j and my Father will love 
him, and we will come unto him and make our 
abode with Him." Do you think He will ? Would 
you be tired of one who in like manner was seek- 
ing to deserve your love ? " Why can't you revel 
in the ocean of His love ? " Only believe His own 
assertion, " Underneath are the everlasting arms," 
and nothing can prevent your doing so. Were you 
ever so advanced a Christian, so long as you re- 
main in the body hunger and thirst must needs at 
once attest your sonship, and that absence from 
1 See the fulfillment of this in her own letter, page 247. 



PERPLEXITIES, 1 83 

your Lord, which constrained Paul to say that " to 
depart and be with Christ is far better." Why, 
I have prayed for years, with an intensity of en- 
treaty words cannot convey : Lord, I beseech Thee, 
I entreat Thee, I implore Thee, I conjure and adjure 
Thee, by all the love Thou bearest to Thine own 
dear Son, that Thou make me as holy as it is pos- 
sible for Almighty God to make me for His dear 
sake. Often I add, as soon as Thou canst for 
Christ's dear sake. And He is doing it. I say it not 
from anything I see, but because He is as good as 
His word, and I cannot doubt Him. A vision of 
faith's coming victory is a perpetual light in my 
soul. I cannot discern its form ; but its inspiration 
is none the less for that. It is a sure word of proph- 
ecy. He has done and is doing great things for 
me, whereof I am glad. What He is doing for me, 
He is also doing for' thee, beloved. ^ 





XXV. 
REALIZING JESUS. 

' The disciple whom Jesus loved said unto Peter, It is the Lord." — John 

xxi. 7. 

" O my sweet Jesus ! hear the sighs 
Which unto Thee I send ; 
To Thee my inmost spirit cries — 
My being's hope and end." 

YOU do "realize Jesus.'' Have you a shadow 
of a doubt that Jesus is? When you open at 
John xiii. i, and read, " He loved them unto the 
end/' have you the shadow of a doubt that He loves 
His disciples to-day, as truly as then ? Do you doubt 
that Jesus speaks to each of us in John xiv., xv., and 
xvi. ? Do you doubt that in John xvii. 24, He in- 
cluded you and me ? When you read the hCdimg 
of the man thirty-eight years at the pool ; or of the 
raising of the young ruler's daughter ; or of Laza- 
rus, have you any difficulty in realizing Jesus ? 
Do you not so realize Him as to feel, " Yes, that is 
just like Him ; just what I should expect of Him ; 
just what I should feel sure He would do in such 
circumstances ? " Can you not feel usually how 
He would decide or act under such and such cir- 
cumstances ? Certainly you can and do ; and in 



REALIZING JESUS. 1 85 

that lies the evidence that you realize Jesus. I an- 
ticipate your saying, " But what I mean is, I want 
to realize just how He feels towards me." Well, He 
feels just as He told you He would in John xiv. 23, 
XV. 9, and xvii. 24; Jer. xxxi. 3. He loves you, 
and He loves you so tenderly that He cannot stay 
away from you ; He dwells in your very heart. 
" But I cannot realize that," you answer. In other 
words, you cannot believe Him. Why can't you be- 
lieve Him ? " Oh, I can't believe that Jesus can 
love and dwell with so sinful a being as I am." He 
knew when He adopted you, as He knew of Peter, 
James, and John, that you were and would be sinful ; 
but He also knew that you would be a penitent 
sinner ; therefore He finds even your sinfulness no 
bar to the fulfillment of His word. " But you want 
a more impressing conviction of His love.'- " And," 
you add, " if He is more ready to give than I to re- 
ceive, why does He not give it then ? " I do not 
know. " Even so. Father, for so it seemeth good 
in Thy sight." That is to say, I don't know why 
He does not give you the realization of His com- 
pliance with His promise ; that He does actually 
give all He promises, I am not able to doubt. You 
remember His answer to some who made requests 
of Him : " According to your faith be it unto you." 
It seems inevitable to conclude, that that which you 
desire of Him, hinges upon the exercise of a confi- 
dence in Him which He expects of you, and for 
which you are accountable. That would seem to 



1 86 BOW TO SEE JESUS. 

imply that you can trust Him ; that a foundation 
for that trust is laid in His promise. The promise 
is His j you know it to be His ; you know Him to 
be faithful, and that He cannot forfeit His word ; 
therefore you can, ought, must, lovingly trust in 
Him, when He says, " Whosoever cometh unto me, 
I will in no wise cast out." Be sure of this ; there 
is no backwardness on His part. Somehow your 
willingness and ability to receive does not keep 
pace with His willingness and desire to give. 

I am sorry, dear friend, even " to seem hard upon 
you,'' but it is not I that am hard. I say to you, 
only what I am compelled a thousand times to say 
to myself, " O thou of little faith ! " It is true, my 
small faith never staggers at the personal presence 
and ceaseless love and helpfulness of Jesus j never- 
theless, I am sometimes inexpressibly tired of the 
conflict of life. Not that I would abridge my term 
of service a day, or an hour ; but I do not handle 
the problems of life with the wisdom which I am 
persuaded stronger faith would supply ; and I find 
abundant reason for the belief that multitudes are 
turning life's opportunities and privileges to better 
account. So you see that this brother of yours, 
like yourself, is not backward in finding hindrances 
to perfect peace. Well, when I am thus troubled, I 
go to my Lord, just as I am j go instantly ; go be- 
lievingly ; but I often have to wait for the feeling I 
would like to have. Suppose you could at any mo- 
ment work yourself up to the ecstatic conscious- 



REALIZING JESUS. 187 

ness you so much desire \ would its possession con- 
tribute as much to your faith, as when given at His 
own sovereign good will and time ? You see I am 
trying to go all round this subject ; it is all I can 
do j to drop a hint here and there, and leave it for 
the good Comforter to combine and harmonize the 
hints, if He please. I do not say that you might 
have exactly what your soul cries out for ; that I 
presume to be an immediate sensation — I do not 
mean it offensively — but that word comes nearest 
to my idea ; and sensation or sensuous impression, 
is what multitudes do get here and there, under 
pressure and excitement, and miscall it faith. But 
the thing I must say, is, that you may instantly, 
actually, thoroughly give yourself to Jesus; and 
He will instantly, actually, thoroughly receive you. 
This I have no doubt you have done, as far as you 
comprehend your privilege. You do not recognize 
the compass and significance of one of your own 
decisions. I dare say you sometimes talk with 
yourself to this effect : " Yes, true, I did tell the 
Lord at such a time. Lord I give myself to Thee ; 
but it did n't amount to much, mere words ; I did n't 
see that anything came of it." 

Now just there I challenge you. I deny your 
right to hold such language even to yourself. It is 
the language of unbelief. Can you deny that you 
did then and there mean to give yourself to Jesus ? 
And dare you deny that He received what you 
tendered? Will you accuse Him of insincerity 



1 88 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

^and unfaithfulness ? " Oh no ! that is the last 
thing you would wish to do. But how are you 
going to escape the imputation of having done 
just that ? I presume I know ; you will fall back 
on that miserable old refuge which has the power 
to take the soul out of all language : " I could n't 
seem to think that what I said amounted to any- 
thing or that it effected anything.'* Is n't that 
doing great unjustice alike to language and to 
yourself ? Language used with honest intent does 
mean something ; does accomplish something. If 
you give yourself to Jesus in honest meaning 
words, you actually give yourself. Why, every-day 
life is full of such doings, and who doubts their 
significance ? A man stands up in the church and 
says, "I avouch the Lord Jehovah to be my 
God." His words are full of meaning ; every- 
body recognizes their meaning and holds him 
henceforth to have adopted the service of Christ. 
A woman stands up in church or parlor and says, 
"I take this man to be my husband." We do in- 
deed sometimes say, " It does not seem as if that 
brief ceremony could effect such a total change in 
the lives of two persons ; " but we never doubt the 
reality of what is effected by the avowal. We 
know that a simple yes or no, ratifies a bargain of 
vast importance between one merchant and an- 
other. Only a word ! True, only a word, but right 
words, how significant ! Allow their significance, 
and it does seem to me, that you might come at 



REALIZING JESUS. 189 

once into soul satisfying realization of your relation 
to Jesus. 

After all, I am not wise ; I am only a child, a 
very little child. I often tell our Lord so. I say 
to Him, Dear Master, Thou knowest my ignorance. 
And again, *' O God, thou knowest my foolishness ; 
and my sin is not hid from Thee." Psalm Ixix. 5. 
One day one truth seems clear to me as the noon- 
day sun. Another day some other truth shines 
so brightly as to leave all other truths for the mo- 
ment in the dim distance. Very possibly you have 
expected too much from me, because of having 
found some part of my testimony to your purpose. 
Our Lord means you shall " cease from man whose 
breath is in his nostrils," and get your supplies 
from Himself. True, He does use man intermedi- 
ately ; • but also true it is, that sometimes He 
chooses to be His own interpreter, and to take His 
own time for it. He has also a choice, and a 
reason for His choice of messengers. I am in- 
clined to suspect that the word which will set you 
free will be intrusted to some messenger other 
than myself. You know that your sanctification is 
God's purpose and intent ; that He has undertaken 
it, and is carrying it on. "Not in a way satisfac- 
tory to me," you may say, " for if I were only con- 
vinced that this is actually advancing, and in the 
best manner, I could be reconciled to anything." 
Perhaps not ; I am firmly convinced that God's 
method with me is the very best ; I would not have 



1 90 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

it altered ; and yet I find it as little to my taste as 
being flayed alive. I can and do often ask Him, 
not to spare the rod for the child's crying ; but it is 
a rod still, and I don't like it. The best I can 
say is, " I will do my best, dear Lord, to endure 
for Thy sake." Often and often am I ready to 
exclaim, " My soul chooseth strangling and death, 
rather than my life." And yet, have I anything 
to complain of ? Nothing ! And do I wish to go ? 
No, indeed ! not till I have finished the work 
He has given me to do ; learned the lessons He 
gives me to learn ; borne the burdens He has 
chosen me to bear ; and " filled up that which is 
behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for 
His body's sake." A Christian lady said to me 
yesterday, " I understand why these troubles are 
upon me; it is because of my self-will. It has 
got to be subdued." It is worth a good deal to 
understand the why. Perhaps the why you are 
thus, is, that you do not read His Word with that 
simplicity which takes each utterance as from 
Him to thee. Perhaps you do not enough use the 
intelligence He has given you to search out the 
characteristics of Him who thus speaks to you, as 
they are imbedded in what He says. 

That much remains that is unsatisfactory to you, 
is no more true of you than of me. For, though I 
can say unhesitatingly, " I am my Beloved's, and 
my Beloved is mine ; " " There is now no condem- 
nation, .... for the law of the spirit of life in 



REALIZING JESUS. 



191 



Christ Jesus hath set me free from the law of sin 
and death ; " still I count not myself to have at- 
tained anything, — not that I deny any attainments 
really made, but because I am so necessarily 
and overwhelmingly conscious of the unattained, 
that I forget the things behind, in my longing de- 
sire for those which remain to be struggled for. 
Hope thou in God ; and praise for what you have 
received. Do not think it modest to ignore that. 





XXVI. 

COMPLETENESS IN JESUS. 

" Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is 
in you ? " — i Cor. vi. 19. 

With hearts so vile how dare we venture, 

Holy Ghost ! to love Thee so ? 
And how canst thou, with such compassion, 

Bear so long with things so low ? 
Holy Ghost ! possess Thy children 

Give us grace, and keep us Thine ; 
Thy tender fires within us kindle. 

Blessed Spirit ! Dove Divine!'* 

THE Bible class lesson this morning was Co- 
lossians ii. lo: "And ye are complete in 
Him." It has such a precious lesson for you that 
I must send it to you. Your disappointment in 
respect to your own progress will be alleviated by 
it. Each Christian is a temple of the Holy Ghost. 
You are such a temple ; not yet finished, but being 
advanced day by day by Him who formed you for 
Himself. 

On Berkeley Street a new church is being built, 
on land reclaimed from the river. Nearly a year 
ago they were driving piles whereon to lay the 
foundation. When we went into the country, in 
June, I said to myself, we shall see great progress 



COMPLETENESS IN JESUS. 1 93 

when we return. ~ But when I went down to see it, 
they had not reached even the top of the doors. 
Shapeless blocks and bits of stone were lying 
around, and the workmen were not idle, but the 
work is large, and to be built for long continuance. 
Meanwhile this slowly advancing edifice is all com- 
plete in the mind of the architect. It is completely 
illustrated in his drawings, some of which I have 
seen. If the workmen live, if disasters do not 
overtake them/ if the blessing of God shall favor, 
by and by the building will be complete to the eye 
of every beholder. Now about yourself, there is no 
if but one. " You shall know, if you follow on to 
know the Lord,'' for his own mouth hath spoken it. 
" Blessed is the man that endureth temptation " — 
that is — the discipline of life : " for when he is tried, 
he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord 
hath promised to them that love Him." You are 
being tried, and it is your loving Lord who is try- 
ing you. He is tenderly desirous that you shall 
endure. He has prayed for thee that thy faith fail 
not. How prone you are to think, " Oh, my trials 
are only the natural consequences of my sinfulness, 
and* of my many failures in duty," and so you think 
the blessing promised to the man that endureth 
temptation " can't be intended for you." But sup- 
pose now, that the last sin you committed was one 
of indole Qce, or of impulsiveness ; of covetousness, 
or of lavish extravagance ; it matters little which, or 
what. It is your Lord who permits a temptation 
13 



194 ^OW TO SEE JESUS. 

to meet you on your accessible side. Temptation 
does not come on any other side. Then, do you not 
see that there is in the temptations coming under a 
natural law, or in the way of natural consequence, 
no bar whatever to the supposition of its being 
Divinely sent, and for your highest good ? At pres- 
ent you are enduring the trial of hope deferred. 
You desire the immediate realization of Jesus' love 
for you. You believe the fact; but you cannot 
realize Jesus and his love in it. So far as your in- 
ability to do this is the effect of sin, your disap- 
pointment will surely intensify your abhorrence of 
sin. Is not that a great gain ? Does any one love 
God and holiness, who does not equally hate sin 
and Satan ? We are not so apt to think of this ; 
but we must hate sin, as God hates it ; and it does 
not appear that we can do this except as we learn 
its hatefulness from its disastrous influence upon 
our usefulness and happiness. What you want is 
absolutely sure and certain ; namely, that our Lord 
should educate you for the everlasting enjoyment 
of his friendship and service. That He is doing. 
He says so : " Yea I have loved thee with an ever- 
lasting love ; therefore with loving kindness have I 
drawn thee." "You are no more a stranger and 
foreigner, .... but built on the foundation of the 
apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being 
the chief corner-stone. In whom all the building 
fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple 
in the Lord ; in whom ye also are builded together 



COMPLETENESS IN JESUS. 1 95 

for an habitation of God through the Spirit/' For 
what has Jesus reconciled you to God ? " To pre- 
sent you holy, unblamable, and unreprovable in 
His sight." But Christ is still preached to you ; 
"that we may present you perfect in Christ Jesus." 
It is a progressive work. Some few Christians ap- 
pear to be brought, by the grace of God, to a point 
from which it is but one step to that fullness of joy 
and peace in believing which you so much crave. 
God sends some Christian friend to indicate that 
one step, and it is seen and taken. Others protest 
they cannot see it. One dear and honored friend, 
himself a preacher and teacher of righteousness, to 
whom, more perhaps than to any other living 
preacher, I owe under God, my own great joy and 
peace, I watched attentively and lovingly for thirty 
years and more ; during all which time he bemoaned 
himself as " a victim to the servile spirit," and un- 
able to rise from it into the spirit of a son. There 
were not wanting those who for this pronounced^— 
shall I say, flippant condemnation, of this man of 
God? But his Lord had assigned him a work 
among the problems of holy living and holy think- 
ing, of which, the larger part even of teachers, know 
very little. Through these it was appointed him to 
work his way into the serene light. And, some 
years ago, in God's own best time, he was enabled 
to emerge from his hard fought contest, conqueror, 
and more than conqueror, through Him who loved 
him, and gave not only Himself for him, but also 



196 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

the Divine Comforter, to dwell with him and in 
him, and to guide him into all truth. On the same 
general principle I am confident our Lord is deal- 
ing with you. He will either presently give you the 
realization of Himself which you crave, or he will 
have a good and sufficient reason for reserving it. 
Either way, He will assuredly supply all you need 
through the riches of His grace in Christ Jesus. 





XXVII. 
LESSONS. 

" Over and over again, 

No matter which way I turn 
I always find in the Book of Life 

Some lesson I have to learn. 
I must take my turn at the mill, 

I must grind out the golden grain, 
I must work at my task with a resolute will 

Over and over again." 

HOW evident is the hand of God in this transfer 
from K to M. ! While your minds were in 
a flutter of agitation, no result was reached, except 
the decision to do nothing. These cases of con- 
science in which our Lord for a season, and for His 
own wise purposes, withholds the light we crave, 
are most profitable. They compel heart-searching, 
and heart-purifying. Our dear Lord has been pre- 
paring you to go to M., " in the fullness of the 
blessing of the gospel of Christ." Seldom have I 
been more pressed in spirit to go on my way pray 
ing, than when in Chicago I started to find the 
friends whose hospitality I was to enjoy. I prayed 
most earnestly that I might go to them in the full- 
ness of that blessing, and that I might be specially 
useful to some one of the household. I found a 



198 HO IV TO SEE yESUS. 

dear daughter who is going by the same way my 
dear May passed out of life. I found her very timid 
and reluctant to speak ; less from want of will, I 
think, than from want of habit. I trust the Lord 
will follow our conversation with His blessing. 

Tell J. " Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth.'' 
My saying so, wont do much for her ; but her find- 
ing it so, will. I was thinking on my way to the 
office, what a wonderful thing is experience ! Like 
a ticket to the Athenaeum, it is "Not Transferable." 
We may mention what we have found true, but it 
does not become true to another until the Lord em- 
bodies it in the experience of that other. I have 
not a doubt that you will follow on. Yes, John x. 
27, 28, is all your own. When I said there was but 
one if, I did not assert that there was one. I simply 
sought to strengthen you by the assurance that there 
was not another. I have found a sweet lesson in 
John xxi. 7 : " The disciple whom Jesus loved said, 
* It is the Lord.' " The loved and loving disciple 
sees Jesus in every event, incident, and experience. 

Sunday evening, — I have thought of you, and 
prayed for you, under the belief that this is your 
first Sabbath in M. The Lord make it a sure ear- 
nest of a most useful and blessed ministry both for 
you and for Mr. G. I am sure you have prayed, 
" If Thy presence go not with us, carry us not up 
hence." Nor have I any doubt that He, the Com- 
forter, has gone with you. At our prayer-meeting 
this evening, the precious and instructive narrative 



LESSONS. 199 

of Cornelius the Centurion and Peter was read. 
How encouraging it is ! The Lord Hfts for us a 
veil, and shows us in one place an inquirer praying ; 
in another place, miles and miles away, He shows 
a religious teacher praying. He sends the one to 
the other, and adds His blessing to the message 
carried. Peter went as soon as bidden. It does 
not appear that he troubled himself either about 
what he was to say, or how he was to say it. He 
went to preach Christ; he did preach Christ, in 
such words as were given him. '^ It was given him 
in that same hour what he should speak." This 
pledge is as good and sure for us, as it was for him. 
Is it not good to wait on the Spirit ? I have done 
that from the first hour I believed j but I have often 
thought, had I my religious life to live over again, 
I would not be satisfied with my past measure of 
looking to Him. I would more than ever rever- 
ently and lovingly insist that He should give me 
my work day by day, hour by hour. Nothing I am 
sure would please Him more. It does seem that a 
vast amount of unproductive, and so discouraging, 
labor, might be avoided, just by getting always our 
direction from the Lord. We read that David in- 
quired of the Lord, " Shall I go up against the 
Philistines ? " " And the Lord answered. Go up, 
and I will deliver them into thy hands." We are 
ready to say. Now if I could only be directed like 
that, then I could work with a will ; as though our 
guidance were any less certain or available because 



200 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

it is given in another way. " If thou canst believe," 
said Jesus, "all things are possible to him that be- 
lieveth." It is only to trust Him as the true and 
faithful Friend He says He is. When challenged to 
believe, many disciples cast about them for some 
precept or promise to fit soyme peculiarity of their 
condition, rather than turn the confidence of their 
hearts on Christ Himself. It is written, " Let thine 
heart keep my commandments." When once I 
take Jesus to my heart as the Lamb of God, the 
Good Shepherd, the Bread of Life, the Son of Con- 
solation, the Unchanging Friend, then it is easy to 
accept any one of His promises as the sure earnest, 
aye, as the complete fulfillment of the thing prom- 
ised. Nothing seems too much for Him to do. 
Surely we will love and trust Him more and more 
entirely every day, every hour. He well deserves 
it all. 

Faith calls for the extremest simplicity ; the ut- 
most possible naturalness of speech and intercourse. 
Thus though it is good to have set times and regu- 
lar seasons for prayer and for listening to God, it is 
by no means enough that we have such seasons. 
Human intercourse is rendered delightful by its 
spontaneity ; by the welling up of warm afiections 
whenever the crust of our ordinary life is penetrated 
by a friendly word, a kindly tone, or look, or by 
any other revelation of regard. Our beloved Lord 
is the nearest, dearest, tenderest friend we have; 
persistent, ceaseless, wonderfully considerate, and 



LESSONS. 201 

forever anticipating our possible desires. How 
natural then, how eminently suitable, that we 
should be breaking out at every turn in the road, 
with the sweet Psalmist of old : " I will praise Thee, 

Lord, with my whole heart j I will shew forth all 
Thy marvelous works." Speak of the goodness of 
the Lord. Let others have the benefit of your ex- 
perience. I am especially glad that you are meeting 
with so many mercies, and "" seeing the hand of God 
so clearly in many of the minor details.'' Your 
faith will be confirmed, your love to Him increased. 

1 do not at all believe that " in removing from E. to 
M. you have wandered away from Jesus." Man is 
as his real desire is ; and I am sure that your real 
desire, like that of St. Paul, is to be " filled with the 
knowledge of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual 
understanding ; to walk worthy of the Lord unto 
all pleasing ; to be fruitful in every good work, and 
to increase in the knowledge of God." God's good- 
ness to you, and your recognition of it, is as much 
a boon to me as to you. Are we not " joint-heirs 
with Christ ? " Just so has He dealt with me, send- 
ing blessing upon blessing. 

" O Christ ! He is the fountain, 
The deep sweet well of love." 

So then tell your experience of this love. You 
surely wish to strengthen the faith of all His saints, 
as well as to convert sinners, therefore speak of 
what He has done and is doing for you. We do not 



202 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

want the experience of perfect people. It is the 
knowledge of what God has done for imperfect peo- 
ple, like ourselves, that touches us most nearly, that 
instructs us most effectively. But the utterance to 
others must be preceded by speaking to the Lord. 
Tell Him everything. Say to Him, Dear Lord, I 
delight in being in Thy hands. I have undoubting 
confidence in Thy management. Not for worlds 
would I take my matters into my own hands. Be- 
hold Thy servant ; be it unto me even as Thou wilt. 
I see multitudes around me to whom Thou art giv- 
ing a measure of success to which I do not even 
aspire. Be it so, dear Lord ; I am content. Give 
what Thou wilt to whom Thou wilt, but give me 
Thy love. I dearly love Thee. I hunger, I thirst, I 
long, I pine for Thee, and for Thy likeness. Make 
haste to sanctify me. I do not see Thee, I cannot 
hear the sound of Thy footsteps ; I cannot lay my 
hand on Thee : no matter, I know Thee. Thou art 
here. Thou art mine, and I am Thine. Blessed 
Comforter, I know Thee too. Thou dwellest with 
me, and in me ; here in this heart. I have long 
ago thrown its door wide open to Thee. Ten thou- 
sand times I have offered Thee full and exclusive 
possession of its every hall, and nook, and corner. 
If there are any occupants here Thou dost not like, 
they are not here with my consent. I hate Thine 
enemies and mine with a perfect hatred. I pray 
Thee, turn them out. Of myself I am not strong 
enough to turn them out, nor wise, nor vigilant 



LESSONS. 203 

enough to keep them out. But if Thou wilt only- 
give me clean riddance of them, I will bless Thee 
with my whole soul. Thou knowest, sweet Lord, 
that I long with insatiable longing to have every 
thought brought into perfect and ever enduring 
captivity to Thyself ; whom not having seen I love ; 
in whom, though now I see Thee not, yet believing, 
I rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. 
President Edwards says his custom was to talk with 
Jesus, to sing to Him, in a low tone, by himself. It 
is a blessed way to do. The best Christians I have 
ever known have been given to it. This is treating 
Him as real, and He gives in return real and most 
substantial tokens of His appreciation of such 
friendship. 





XXVIII. 
ASPIRATION. 

" Jesus saith unto him, Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have 
believed." — John xx. 29. 

" Jesus, thou Joy of loving hearts ! 

Thou Fount of Life! Thou Light of men! 
From the best bliss that earth imparts, 
We turn unfilled to Thee again." 

YOU are to believe that Jesus is ever with you 
because you have His word for it : only that, 
and nothing more. You have most unquestionably 
heard His voice, and opened the door of your heart 
to Him, and He has come in to you and dwells with 
you. And you have no right to invalidate His 
word, however much you may feel that you ought 
to confess your unworthiriess. I often think that 
we can improve upon Peter's hasty, " Depart from 
me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." I am a sinful 
man, therefore do not forsake me, Lord, for what 
can I do without Thee ? It is the method of His 
loving-kindness to permit your moods, your ebb and 
flow of feeling in order to draw you more close to 
Himself. Consider what a boon He has bestowed 
on you in making you unable to live out of the sun- 
light of His Idve ! How sad would be your condi- 



ASPIRATION. 205 

tion, if you could be, as thousands are, easy and in- 
different about it. Pant after Him if you will, and as 
much as you can ; but also rest in Him ; remember- 
ing His assurance, " Peace I leave with you ; my 
peace I give unto you." We are ever apt to think 
that some one phase of spiritual life is the phase 
icceptable to our Lord. Whereas He has pro- 
vided, and is ever so providing, as to secure the 
development of a many-sided love. To read Paul's 
outburst in Romans viii. : " Who shall separate us 
from the love of Christ ? " or King David's, in 
Psalm cxlv. : " I will extol the€, my God, O King ! " 
is indeed exhilarating ; but not less profitable is it 
to turn to Psalm cxxxi., and in those precious 
words to breathe into His listening ear, " My soul 
is even as a weaned child." When we consider 
how great is the work of sanctification, which our 
Lord is carrying on, is it strange that we cannot 
measure the means which He is employing ? Shall 
the thing formed and being formed, say to Him 
that formed it, Why hast Thou made me thus ? 

When " it is sometimes hard work to speak to 
Him," is it not that your desire is to speak in away 
not compatible with your then present condition ? 
Suppose you cannot employ the language of exulta- 
tion, can you not use that of tender appeal t 
*' Lord save, or I perish." '^ Dear Lord, I am a 
worm and no man." " Lord, I am Thine ; poor, 
weak, feeble, sinful as I am, I am Thine, and only 
Thine. To whom else can I go ? " And when you 



206 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

cannot talk at all, call to mind the beautiful illustra- 
tion of the child too ill to speak, but who can and 
does now and then open his eyes to assure himself 
that the inclosing arms are his mother's ; then shuts 
his eyes and rests content. 

What you call your indolence and listlessness, is 
without doubt sheer physical exhaustion. There is 
as much piety and love in acquiescing in that, as in 
" subduing kingdoms." I do not believe Mary of 
Bethany was one of the great workers. The record 
says, " She sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word." 
That would harmonize with your capabilities ; and 
I am sure He welcomes you there, especially on 
those days when " you find it almost impossible to 
speak to God or man." And, feeling confident that 
I know His mind in this, I will venture to assure 
you, that you cannot pleasje Him better than in 
laying your weary head upon His shoulder. 

You remember what my dear James said, of how 
" Locke on the Understanding " brought him the 
help he needed, when he could not make Dr. K. un- 
derstand his perplexity. He needed to know the 
bounds of human thought. ^' I seemed to be in 
search of first principles ; something to base my re- 
flections upon. Locke supplies that want ; shows 
me what is self-evident ; what is capable of demon- 
stration ; and what must be settled by a balance of 
probabilities." 

This morning M. gave utterance to a thought, 
very common, I fear, but which has not a shadow 



ASPIRATION, 207 

of foundation, strangely and most unhappily dropped 
into her mind by the unthinking, or not well-con- 
sidered expression, of one whose earnest desire 
was to comfort her. The statement was, that ^* in 
heaven all the inhabitants were brothers and 
sisters/' And the impression was, that there all 
family ties were obliterated. I can hardly conceive 
of a misconception — for such it assuredly is — 
more completely contrary to the teachings of our 
Lord j contrary to the blessed family relation which 
He created and gave to man as a most precious 
type of the heavenly life, and a constant incentive 
to press toward it. I had planned a much more 
earthly occupation for this hour, but this seems such 
a hurtful misrepresentation, I am unwilling to de- 
lay to record my protest against it, as a memo- 
randum for another chapter which I trust our Lord 
may some day give me leave to write for the con- 
solation of His troubled saints. I would begin with 
John xiii. i, and show that Jesus' loving considera- 
tion for the necessities with which He endowed His 
creatures, is not to be so abridged : " Having loved 
His own which were in the world, He loved them to 
the end." Mindful of the loving hearts just about 
to be bereaved of their dearest Friend, He set Him- 
self to provide for them the varied consolation 
which they would so much need. He gave them a 
love-feast without a precedent and without a par- 
allel ; not alone for those first disciples, but for 
ever}^ disciple, a memorial feast, to be frequently 



208 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

renewed, at which He would always sit with them> 
Let not your hearts be troubled, hitherto' I have 
been visibly present with you, and your grief that 
I am to be so no longer, is natural. But I shall be 
none the less truly with you. You believe in God 
the Father, though He is not visible to the eye. As 
you believe in Him, so believe in me. Believe 
without a doubt. I am going to my Father. In 
His house are many mansions, various and peculiar, 
as are you, my beloved disciples, and suitable withal 
to the characteristics of their several tenants. If 
it had been otherwise I would have told you. As 
it is, I am going before you to prepare for each of 
you his appropriate dwelling. Understand me : 
I have been training you for your respective homes ; 
and trust me, I will take care to fit those homes 
to the characteristics, and the tastes which I have 
been forming in you. Remember the words I 
have spoken to you, and be sure that in keeping 
these words you are making daily preparation for 
a blessed and glorious reunion. In your hearts I 
have implanted conjugal, parental, filial, and fra- 
ternal affection ; each in its way an earnest of the 
love of heaven. And as you now comprehend these 
forms of love, I appeal to each of them, in sure 
token that your fidelity to me in them shall be re- 
warded to the full. To each of you I say with 
emphasis, " I thy Maker am thy husband." " I 
am thy Father." " A brother born for adversity." 
Children, I command to "obey and honor their 



ASPIRATION, 209 

parents ; " " husbands to love their wives j and 
wives to love and honor their husbands." I re- 
mind you of the tenderness of a mother's love. 
And I have both commended to you, and illustrated 
for you^ the sweets of friendship : " Now Jesus 
loved Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus.*' 
"God is love.'' And nothing is so formative as 
love, nothing educates like love,- " Love is the ful- 
filling of the law." What you will be when you 
enter heaven, will be in great part, what you have 
been made by love. How egregious, then, the 
error of those who infer from Matt. xxii. 30, that to 
"be as the angels of God," is to be stripped of 
all that individualizes the man, the woman, and 
the child ; is to arrest the heart-currents of a life- 
time. 

14 




XXIX. 
WALKING WITH GOD. 

" Thy presence has a wondrous power ! 
The sharpest thorn becomes a flower, 

And breathes a sweet perfume ; 
Whate'er looked dark and sad before, 
With happy light shines silvered o'er 
There 's no such thing as gloom." 

YOU say that " in attempting to pray, you have 
never once had any conscious impression of 
the presence of the Divine Being/' 

So far as I have had the means of knowing, the 
number of those who uniformly have any conscious 
impression of the presence of the Lord, is small. 
One intelligent friend, of whom I made inquiry, 
said he viewed this consciousness as the fruit of a 
sensibility which is a gift, just as any of the talents 
we possess are the gift of God. This view seems 
to me to find a measure of confirmation in the apti- 
tude we discover in ourselves to come to know 
some persons. It is in marked contrast with our 
backwardness, not to say impossibility, of knowing 
certain other persons. I suppose you feel this. 
And the quicker and finer the sensibility possessed, 
the more we should expect that attraction or re- 



WALKING WITH GOD, 211 

pulsion to be strong. When we feel strongly at- 
tracted to any one we are quick to see and feel the 
qualities which represent to us the personality we 
admire and love. Not unfrequently we adopt those 
whom we have never seen on the testimony of mut- 
ual friends. We believe their testimony, and believ- 
ing, embrace a personality which cannot be separated 
from the characteristics affirmed of them. If we. 
can thus believe in our fellow-man, it does not ap- 
pear that we may not in like manner, and with 
equal distinctness, believe what is affirmed of God, 
the witnesses being equally credible. If we have 
received in any considerable degree the character- 
istics commended by our Lord in His Sermon on 
the Mount, poverty of spirit, sympathy, compassion, 
meekness, purity, etc., we shall be quick to discern 
and to admire these in Him, and so the more we 
study the Scriptures which contain His illustrations 
of these graces, the more probable it would seem 
that our love through these would make Him near 
and real to us. I have been thinking how daily 
life must differ to the apprehension of persons un- 
equally and differently endowed. Thus, for exam- 
ple, a dozen persons might travel on a summer's 
day from M. to New Haven. One might traverse 
the road with a drove of cattle before him, with no 
higher thought than of pasturage, and of the price 
to be gotten for his cattle. Another might pass 
over the same road thinking only of some case in 
,aw, or of some problem in metaphysics. Another 



212 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

with some humane purpose of obtaining a reasona- 
ble suffrage for freedmen. Still another with sweet 
meditations of Him who planted your happy people 
upon that pleasant Sound, and the great and wide 
sea beyond, the murmur of whose waves were sound- 
ing in his ear a glorious psalm, his eyes and his 
heart turning continually to the manifold works of 
God, and the loving-kindness that pervades them 
all. To one filled with such sensibility as God 
sometimes bestows, every foot of this road might 
contain an inspiration to extol the great Creator for 
facts and truths entirely unperceived by the men 
before and behind him. So it is in all the pilgrim- 
age from the city of Destruction to Mount Zion. 
Men are variously affected by all the incidents of 
the way, " according to that a man hath, and not 
according to that he hath not.'' 

It seems to me that much concern about how you 
ought to feel, when attempting to speak to your 
Lord, must distract your mind and hinder access to 
Him. Accept very simply and with thankfulness 
His grace to your young converts. Cut out work 
for them. Show them the relation between work- 
ing for Him and growth in grace. And for further 
lessons, what can be sweeter or more hopeful than 
the utterance of the beloved John : " That which 
we have seen and heard, declare we unto you. And 
these things we write unto you that your joy may 
be full." And John the Baptist says : " Behold 
the Lamb of God. He is the true light which 



WALKING WITH GOD, 213 

iighteth every man. As many as receive Him, to 
them He gives power to become the sons of God." 
The abiHty to receive the revelation of Himself is, 
you see, the gift of God. Now if He sees fit to 
withhold for a time the happy realization you desire, 
may it not be, must it not be, that there is in this 
withholding some gracious design ? One thing much 
to be desired is this : that we should learn to follow 
Christ for what He is in Himself, rather than for 
what He may bestow on us. In studying the Bible 
for this purpose, we discover w^hat Christ is in His 
dealings with others. In so studying we pursue 
our inquiry without bias from self-interest. We 
learn to trust Jesus Himself. Our minds are turned 
away from peculiarities of personal experience, our 
own or others'. We are encouraged to take each 
word and act appropriate to our needs and uses as 
actually spoken by our Lord to us personally. In 
proportion as we dismiss all worldly wisdom, and 
are content with being but babes, does it become 
practicable to sit at Jesus' feet and learn of Him. 

You seem to decline to take the full benefit of 
the faith you have, because what Jesus has given 
you is so simple, so intelligible, and has come to 
you with so little that is startling. You did not 
think the kingdom of God would come in that way. 
You are not the first by many thousands, that has 
had this thought. Simple belief in Jesus, taking 
Him at His word, rings no bells, fires no cannon, 
makes no noise of any kind, but just believes, and 



214 ^O/^ TO SEE JESUS, 

goes on. Depend upon it, you need nothing but 
simply to believe that our Lord has called you, 
does call you, and is calling you, every moment; 
and that you have heard, have followed, and do 
now follow Him, from day to day, from hour to 
hour. Would you like an angel to speak from 
heaven, and say to you : " E. you are a believer, 
accepted and beloved of Jesus ? " It would not 
help you a particle. It would be a hindrance. 
Because, what He requires, and what you need, is 
faith in Him ; not faith in an angel. Unconsciously 
you are asking for some substitute for faith in your 
Lord. Do you not see that in His word Jesus 
comes straight to you, and says to you, " My dear 
child, give me your confidence, your love, your 
heart. Do I not deserve it ? Have I not revealed 
myself to thee as no one else has ever done ? Have 
I not given you a pen picture ; a portrait of myself 
portrayed in God's own pure light? Have I not 
held it up to your view from your infancy. Is any 
part of it faint, dim, or in any way obscure ? Was 
ever meekness and gentleness like mine ? Was ever 
pity and compassion ? Was ever purity and peace- 
making ? Was ever heavenly aspiration like mine t 
You admire heroism ; was I not persecuted even 
unto death ? You admire patient endurance ; when 
I was reviled, did I ever revile again ? When the 
grossest insults and obloquy were heaped upon me, 
was ever a word, or act, or look of retaliation heard, 
or seen ? Were not my last words, Father, forgive 



WALKING WITH GOD. 21$ 

them, for they know not what they do ? For what 
further evidence do you wait ? You have not only 
Moses and the Prophets ; you have the Psalmists, 
the Evangelists, and the Apostles. Above all, you 
have the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. He dwells 
with you and in you. Every day of your life He 
takes the things of God and of Christ and shows 
them to you. He is my representative ; He is with 
you on purpose to redeem my assurance that you 
should be a gainer by my returning to the Father." 
Do you not think, that if you believed all this, it 
would make you happy ? Then believe it ; simply 
believe it, for it is entirely true. Do not fly off to 
any considerations of feeling. Irrespective of all 
such considerations, it is simply true ; and yoa 
ought to believe it, and take the good of it. I say 
ought, yes indeed you ought ; you owe it to your- 
self ; you owe it to your husband ; you owe it to 
your parishioners ; you owe it to your fellow-creat- 
ures everywhere ; above all, you owe it to our dear 
Lord Jesus Christ, who loved you, gave Himself 
for you, and ever liveth to make intercession for 
you. Take Jesus' words, John xiv. 13, 14, and xv. 
7, and hear His own voice speaking to you. Be- 
lieve and trust Him entirely, lovingly, thankfully. 
This is heart-sight of Jesus. The oftener you do 
this, the clearer and sweeter will be your vision of 
Him. 




XXX. 
PROVING ALL THINGS. 

*' We daily walk the crowded street, 

Nor heed the sky above us ; 
We seldom say to those we meet 

That there is One who loves us. 
O weak in trust, and dim in sight ! 

When will ye heed the teaching, 
That Heaven is never out of sight, 

Nor God beyond our reaching ? " 

THE persons whose experiences make you re- 
ject or disparage your own, are made and 
fitted for another sphere, and not for yours. Never 
mind them, but turn to Jesus, and submit your 
thoughts and soHcitudes to Him; not doubtfully, 
as if allowing the question. How can He possibly 
be concerned in matters so small as mine ? Your 
affairs are such as He has been pleased to provide 
for you ; and being yours they are of prime impor- 
tance to you. You have His own permission and 
command, " Call upon me in the day of trouble, 
and I will deliver thee ; and thou shalt glorify me. 
I will guide thee with mine eye." It seems to me 
as if He had said : I know your modesty, you need 
not cry very loud, I am not far away, I shall hear 
your every whisper. I will hasten to your relief. 



PROVING ALL THINGS. 217 

You are distressed because ^y you have not an all- 
pervading sense of sin." You have heard, as I 
have often heard, the characteristic and oft repeated 
utterances of certain well meaning men, who do not 
consider that some things appropriate enough to 
themselves, growing out of their own peculiarities, 
may not befit the conditions and needs of others. 
I have known men truly and very earnest to be use- 
ful, steeped to the lips in self-complacency ; quite 
conscious too of their sinfulness in this, filled with 
" an all-pervading sense of sin,'' — and why should 
they not be ? But are we thence to assume that 
their neighbors, who have no such temptation, ought 
to employ the same language ? Your easily beset- 
ting sin is not self-complacency ; but rather, through 
excessive contemplation of your well known short- 
comings, despondency. Fixing your attention upon 
your own failures, you unconsciously under-esti- 
mate the atonement which Christ your Lord has 
made. I think I might properly say, you have a 
too " pervading sense of sin ; " since it invades and 
more or less obscures the movements of the Holy 
Spirit upon your mind and heart. Do not forget 
what St. Paul says of the eifect of being in Christ. 
" There is therefore now no condemnation to them 
which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the 
flesh but after the Spirit. For the law of the spirit 
of life in Christ Jesus, hath made me free from the 
law of sin and death." To clutch, then, at " an all- 
pervading sense of sin," may be a strange perver- 



2l8 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

sion and rejection of your privilege; which is to 
grasp with unyielding tenacity the covenant of 
grace, and the remission of sins which the blood of 
Christ has secured to you. I have often heard ob- 
ligation to agony in prayer urged upon believing, 
trusting Christians, in a fashion strangely inconsist- 
ent with our Lord's own teaching. He says : "Ask 
and ye shall receive." " Whatsoever ye shall ask 
in my name, that will I do. If ye shall ask any- 
thing in my name, I will do it." " When ye pray 
believe that ye receive, and ye shall have." " If ye 
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to 
your children, how much more shall your Heavenly 
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him." 
Assuredly it may be well, and most proper, to say 
to those who are slumbering over their highest ob- 
ligations : Awake and call upon your God ; agonize 
to attain deliverance from your most criminal m- 
sensibility to the claims of your God. But to lash 
to a frenzy of further supplication, those whose 
special sin is that they do not accept the peaceful 
trust and joy in the Lord which Jesus proffers, is 
an almost unpardonable perversion and abuse of 
the commission our Lord gives to those whom He 
has sent, saying, " Comfort ye my people, saith 
your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, 
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, 
that her iniquity is pardoned." Alas ! how true it is, 
" We seldom say to those we meet, 
That there is One who loves us." 



PROVING ALL THINGS, 219 

And the reason for this omission, we may well 
believe is our own sinful insensibility to His love. 
We should agonize to surmount and forever put 
away this insensibility of unbelief, this obstinacy of 
disregard to His assurance, "I have loved thee 
with an everlasting love." Has the sum of His 
love ever yet been told ? 

I have sometimes been informed that I failed to 
make proper recognition of "the terrors of the 
Lord.'^ I could only say in reply, that I wait con- 
stantly md only upon God according to Psalm Ixii., 
and take thankfully what the Lord sends. I ac- 
knowledged that I might be unconsciously backward 
in many ways, but I could not recognize " the ter- 
rors " till He showed them to me. I could give to 
others only what I had received. I had received a 
very sweet and controlling sense of the love of God. 
I perceived that people generally did not care as 
much for that as for terrors j I was very sorry for 
it, but I could not quite feel to blame that He had 
given me a happier experience, even if it was less 
influential. I have found reason to question if the 
superior power of terrors be not more apparent 
than real ; and it has occurred to me, that with my 
limited strength, a dispensation of love was more 
congruous with my commission, and compatible 
with my capabilities for usefulness, than the thun- 
ders of Sinai. Under the precious impulses of the 
tormer I could go steadily on for an indefinite period, 



220 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

and try to make up by continuous and even work- 
ing for lack of the power which I could admire in 
others, but could find no way to acquire. I used 
to feel troubled about it, before I saw all this. I am 
troubled no longer. It seems probable to me, that 
with your delicate frame, you will have to content 
yourself with a like resignation. Fortunately we 
are to give account to God for what we have, and 
not for what we have not received. My own ex- 
perience persuades me that a love of Jesus which 
is controlling, is a surer and more efficient power 
than fear ; and we know that *^ perfect love casteth 
out fear.'' A thread is better than a cable, if it 
draws that which is to be drawn, because a child 
may use it. " The beauty and attractiveness of 
Jesus," kept in sight, is more prevailing than gravi- 
tation. The doubts of those who doubt this, recom- 
mend them to our pity and our prayers : as argu- 
ments, or as grounds for judicial decisions, they are 
valueless. Let us take pains to show young con- 
verts that sin consists in insensibility to " the meek- 
ness and gentleness of Christ ; " in carelessness 
about His work, in indifference to the salvation of 
others j in self-sparing, and selfishness in any form. 
If " most of your Christian friends have attained 
something which you do not possess,'' it is no less 
true that God has freely bestowed on you something 
which multitudes of professing Christians lack, 
namely, that hunger and thirst which is the sure 



PROVING ALL THINGS, 



221 



earnest of being filled. " Wait, I say, on the Lord/' 
Your capacity to receive is being daily and hourly 
enlarged. " Fear not, little one, it is your Father's 
good pleasure to give you the kingdom,'' after you 
have suffered a while. 





XXXI. 
HOPE DEFERRED. 

" Why should I murmur ? For the sorrow 

Thus only longer-lived would be ; 
Its end may come, and will, to-morrow, 

When God has done His work in me ; 
So I say, trusting, ' As God will ! * 
And trusting to the end, hold still." 

LET me share a pleasant thought with you. I 
was first thinking, another day's work lies 
before me ; hard work, not naturally agreeable to 
me j work consuming time and strength ; and so 
absorbing as to leave no time, or strength, or men- 
tal force for what seems best worth the while, for 
an immortal. And then, in an instant, I thought 
and said. It is all right. Lord, I see it all. This is 
Thy way of answering my most earnest prayer for 
holiness in order to usefulness. I perfectly under- 
stand, that in crossing all my natural preferences. 
Thou art giving me my heart's desire and prayer. 
How many years I have been praying this prayer ! 
And never for a moment hast Thou lost sight of it, 
or failed to fashion the desired results. For twenty, 
thirty, forty years, has the prayer gone up, and I 
have watched and listened, and seen no sight, heard 



HOPE DEFERRED. 223 

no sound, met with no startling intervention. But, 
in the depths of my heart, and through all my soul, 
I have the serene and full conviction, that the un- 
seen^ unheard answer, has been coming every day, 
every hour, every moment. " What a Friend we 
have above ! " Now I like to tell you this, because, 
as He has been dealing with me, so He has been 
and is dealing with thee. How plainly it marks 
the sphere and work of faith : " Whom having not 
seen we love \ in whom, though now we see Him 
not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable 
and full of glory.'' You have been distressing 
yourself under a misapprehension into which we all 
fall, that were we praying most to the purpose we 
should be conscious of it ; and also assured of im- 
mediate progress. No ! it is in the absence of such 
evidence we are driven to Christ, and to His Word, 
asking ever with tender and tremulous solicitude. 
Lord, am I right ? " Will the Lord cast off forever ? 
Will He be favorable no more ? Is His mercy 
clean gone forever ? Doth His promise fail for 
evermore ? '*' No ! God hath not forgotten to be 
gracious. His grace has pervaded all His silence ; 
and in due time, in the best time, in the fullness of 
time, this blessed truth will fill the soul with its 
radiance as when the sun shineth in his strength. 
I see and feel it constantly, and it makes my peace 
like a river, and like the fullness of the sea ; and 
never is it more full and serene than when " He 
weakens my strength in the way ; " so you will find 



224 ffOW TO SEE yESUS, 

it. When there is no sun or stars in the spiritual 
firmament, there is nothing for us but to turn to 
His chart, which is His word, and take His way- 
mark promises as our safe and certain guide. 

You do well to be very solicitous to please Jesus ; 
which, by the way, proves that you realize Him, 
your oft renewed protest to the contrary notwith- 
standing. What an ingenious soul you are in mak- 
ing out a case against yourself ! You are perplexed 
because the multiplied labors, thrown upon you by 
the revival, leave you no undistracted time for 
prolonged reading and praying. But pur Lord calls 
upon you to do only what you are capable of doing ; 
and He calls you to use the best judgment you have 
about that. This much is plain : the work before 
you is God's work ; He brought it to you. He has 
made its importance so palpable that you cannot 
put it from you ; you feel that it must be done. 
Now, how would you act towards your mother 
under like circumstances ? " Mother, I delight in 
doing anything for you, and whatever you bring 
me, I shall do, to the best of my ability ; and I 
know that when in filling my hands with work for 
you, you leave me less time to talk with you, and 
to listen to you, you will not suspect me of any in- 
difference, or voluntary absence from your cham- 
ber." So much confidence have you in your mother. 
Can you not trust Jesus as-far ? Besides, each word 
you speak for Jesus, to one of your inquirers, is an 
act of cooperation with Him which you cannot sap- 



HOPE DEFERRED. 225 

arate from prayer, without some strange perversity 
of unbelief. Hold yourself to the recognition of the 
fact, that He is in very deed with you and in you, 
in it all. Certainly you were never in the secrecy of 
your chamber nearer to Jesus than you are when 
so employed. Will He blame you, think, you, when 
He so multiplies your labors that you can find time 
and strength only for ejaculatory prayers ? You say, 
" I know I could rise earlier in the morning." I take 
the liberty to question that. I do not think you 
could, I am quite sure you ought not. It is true 
our Lord does place us sometimes in circumstances, 
in which, for a time, usually a very brief time, we 
are compelled to do more than we are well able 
to do. But generally, I suspect, a few days' work, 
followed up, is more acceptable to Him than over- 
working ; and evidently it is the best economy for 
man and beast. No friend can adjust the balance 
for you ] your scales are too fine for that. The 
Master has given you your judgment, and expects 
you to use it. Certainly He has given you an un- 
mistakable intimation that you please Him ; and I 
think you should accept it with all thankfulness. 
Were you indifferent to prayer, and to communion 
with Jesus in His Word, you might have reason for 
solicitude. But such is not the case. You are so 
far from being indifferent, that you are making 
yourself altogether too anxious. Another thought : 
Not a few Christians make a superstition of regular 
and set readings of the Bible and prayers ; and es- 
15 



226 HOW TO SEE yESUS. 

pecially of reading a full chapter or more. I have 
heard Sunday-school teachers proclaim to their 
scholars that by reading two or three chapters each 
week-day, and five on Sunday, they could accom- 
plish the praiseworthy task of getting through the 
Bible in a year. Now I find that I never read the 
Bible so profitably as when some single verse, or 
two verses, get such hold of me that for days, weeks, 
and sometimes months, I cannot consent to give 
them up, or to read any other verses. Really 
earnest, growing Christians will neither, on the 
one hand, catch at slight excuses for omitting or 
shortening regular daily devotions; nor, on the 
other hand, make a rule so inflexible as to substi- 
tute daily reading and prayer for growing love and 
obedience to Christ. One thing more and more 
impresses me, the need of all this discipline of 
perplexity, because the transforming of such creat- 
ures as we are into the image of Jesus is such an 
immense matter. Take that view of it, and account 
every new perplexity new evidence that our beloved 
Lord is using the attrition of trial to make you 
more like Himself. I am sure that this is the true 
interpretation of it. I have realized it to be so 
during the two months past beyond what I have 
ever done before. And the sweet peace this reali- 
zation gives, is greater than I can tell you. Evi- 
dently our Lord is answering your prayers abun- 
dantly. Do not trouble or perplex yourself because 
your young converts are traveling a shorter road 



HOPE DEFERRED, 



227 



whan yourself. That was just what I found in dear 
" Orient's " case. She learned in two years what 
cost me twenty. Why should He not so prepare 
one who was so soon to be caught up to be with 
the Lord. Besides, " we are made a spectacle to 
angels ; " and they are instructed in the grace of 
God, when they find us blessing God that our pupils 
are doing better than we have done. 

Beyond a doubt your sometime-worry arises in 
no small part from your not realizing how perfectly 
safe it is for you just to assume the unwavering 
love Jesus bears you, and so to give up all care of 
yourself to Him. He will take care of you ; full 
care. He knows you by name. It is not so much 
** a deeper consecration you need," as a simple be- 
lief in the consecration you have already made ; 
that Jesus accepts both it and you. You are not 
to worry yourself about an ideal consecration, which 
you conceive of, as a possibility, but which you can 
in no way lay hold of, as a reality. That consecra- 
tion may possibly be somebody's duty, but it is not 
yours. I do not think " Jesus would be more real 
to you if you sought Him oftener in the closet j " 
your trouble does not, I think, lie there. But you 
need while about the common occupations of life 
often to remind yourself, "Jesus is real, is mine, 
and I am His ; He has taken me just as I am, and 
He is making me just what He wishes me to be. 
Every day He is setting this work forward. He 
says it." John xiii. i ; xvii. 19. 



228 HOW TO SEE JESUS, 

Thanks to Brother G. for his assurance that he 
can make use of me in M., and I echo your desire 
that I may come to you in the fullness of the bless- 
ing of the Gospel of Christ. I mean to ask the 
members of my three Bible-classes to make in- 
tercession to that end. Upborne by such a cloud 
of prayer, I shall confidently expect the Divine ap- 
proval and blessing on the endeavor. 

You ask what I think of our friends knowing in 
Heaven of our on-goings here. 1 have the strong- 
est persuasion that they do know, for Jesus knows ; 
and they having awaked in His likeness, are in 
perfect and intimate sympathy with Him ; His cares 
are their cares, and their cares His cares. It must 
therefore be His pleasure to tell them much that 
they must wish to know. You remember Bishop 
Butler holds that an order of things existing, is to 
be presumed to continue, unless there is probable 
cause for its discontinuance ; unless it can be shown 
that there is in the change that which forbids the 
expectation of its continuance. Now there is in 
the change, which we call death, nothing to forbid 
the expectation of the continuance of those powers 
and interests upon which death has no power. Our 
affections obviously must survive, because there is 
nothing in death adapted to arrest the affections 
themselves, though it has power to arrest that mani- 
festation of them which is seen in the working of 
the physical powers. 




XXXII. 



JESUS ONLY.. 

" Ho ! thou traveler on life's highway, 

Moving carelessly along, 
Pausing not to watch the shadows 

Lowering o'er the mighty throng! 
Stand aside and mark how feebly 

Some are struggling in the fight, 
Turning on thee wistful glances, 

Begging thee to hold the light." 

AT Guilford a bright, sunny-faced young girl 
got into the car and took her seat with 
another less sunny, about the same age, in the seat 
next mine. The first looked so like some of your 
bright young Christians, I presently turned to her 
and asked, " Do you love Jesus ? " 

** Yes, sir ; " was the quick, bright answer ; and 
her eyes sparkled with the heart in them. 

" How long have you loved Him ? " 

" Two years, sir." 

" And you have n't lost the sound of His voice ? " 

" No, sir." 

'^ And you do not intend to lose it ? " 

'' No, sir." 

^* And you never need, my dear child, if you will 
only keep near Him." 



230 IIOIV TO SEE JESUS. 

I then turned to the other : " And do you love 
Jesus, too ? " 

" I don't profess to." 

" Ah, that 's sad." I said ; " and you want to be 
happy too ; but you can't be truly till you love 
Him." I found they were both going to West M. ; 
the first to teach school ; and I engaged her to look 
after the other. She said she would. 

My heart is so full this morning that I must let 
out some of it. I woke at half -past five, full of love, 
and praise, and prayer. The sense of our dear 
Lord's goodness and love was overpowering. I 
thought of how much He had been giving me in M. 
and since. I prayed for you all ; and then for the 
dear class I am to meet this afternoon. Then I 
wrote to dear Dr. C, telling him how I rejoiced in 
his sermon on Sunday morning ; especially in what 
he said of simple faith in God ; of reliance on His 
Word j and of no need to see signs and wonders. 
I was peculiarly impressed because of an incident 
which occurred on Saturday evening at my dear 
friend D.'s. His brother, a convert of a few weeks 
only, drew me towards him, saying, " Now tell me 
all about your work at M." 

" Well," I said, " I had a blessed visit ; I enjoyed 
every moment. Brother G. took me to a half a 
dozen or more districts of his wide town. My heart 
was full and running over. Such a sea of up-turned 
young and older faces ! and such attention ! a soul 
in every face ! " 



JESUS ONLY. 231 

"But did you lead any one to Christ? " I was 
dumb. The question took me at unawares. Had 
I been in Dr. C.'s vein I should have shouted in 
reply, " When God leads up the sun, is there any 
light?" Lead any one to Christ? Aye, I led them 
all to Christ! Nay, better than that, I brought 
Christ to them ; and offered Him to every soul, on 
His own commission ; free as air, and full of grace 
and truth and love. 

Recognizing the fact, that there are some who 
dishonor the Master through the absence of all ex- 
pectation that He will redeem His pledge : " My 
Word shall not return unto me void, but it shall 
accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper 
in the thing whereto I sent it," I must think that 
others offend, not less, in ignoring His declaration : 
" By grace ye are saved, through faith j and that 
not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." I could 
sympathize with the King of Israel, and demand, 
Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man 
expects me to recover men from the leprosy of sin ? 
My commission is to preach the gospel to every 
creature. Towards this I did my best endeavor. 

The sense of Christ's presence, and of His love, 
was so near and so sweet I could not help repeat- 
ing to myself in the cars. Sweet Jesus ! oh, how 
good Thou art ! How shall I ever thank Thee as I 
ought and would ? 

" The love of Jesus, what it is, 
None but His loved ones know." 



232 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

Coming from the cars, homeward, I met my 
friend C. who exacted a promise that I would preach 
in L. Street Chapel on Sunday. My text was that 
precious one, " Behold I stand at the door and 
knock." At the close of the service Mr. and Mrs. 
C. rushed up, eager to know, " Had I been reading 
Jean Ingelow's " Brothers and a Sermon ? " The 
sermon is on this same text. I had not then read it. 
I have since. Her sermon is a gem ; I have rarely, 
if ever, met with any so beautiful ; and so forceful 
and persuasive too. Who and what can she be ? 
Could any but an earnest Christian worker, and a 
rare poet, write that sermon ? I know not. Alas ! 
for the possibilities. I recall with sorrow the o'er- 
true declaration of another accomplished authoress : 
" It is one thing to depict a useful life, and quite 
another to live it.'' One of my early morning im- 
pressions, before I had risen from my pillow, was, 
Jesus means to convert W. Remember His cove- 
nant with you for your children. And then I fell 
to praying with a vehemence I could never attain 
to before, that He would make a work so deep, so 
thorough, as to be a wonder among wonderful con- 
versions. And I think He will. 

I do not remember if I told you that when R. L. 
passed us on Friday evening, she whispered in my 
ear, " I see a ray of light.'' It made me anticipate 
the result you report. Set her and all the rest of 
your young converts to work for Jesus. We must 
have a new kind of Christians for these wonderful 
times, working Christians. 



JESUS ONLY, 233 

The impression of the young lady you quote, that 
" this is her last call/' has had many precedents. I 
should feel as you do, deeply solicitous for her, but 
in no haste to conclude that this is not the pitying 
Saviour's way of touching her too deeply to permit 
her to evade the call. No doubt '^ Satan does suggest 
all manner of discouragements ;" but in suggesting 
such an one as this, even with the imputation of 
hardness and injustice to God, he would most likely 
overshoot his mark. 

It is very pleasant to learn what you say of the 
captain. God's word is sure, as to His promises ; 
sure too as to the effect of His word. 

If I never hear of a case of conversion from the 
use of my little books from now to the end of my 
life, I shall expect, without a doubt, to find many 
when we get home. Only believe, dear sister, and 
you shall know that your labor is not, and never 
shall be, in vain in the Lord. You will have a host 
of sheaves. Tell Jesus everything. Nothing is 
little in His sight that contributes to the peace and 
well-being of His saints. Your smallest solicitudes 
He gave you, that you might bring them to Him. 
That is His way of keeping you an intimate and 
tenderly loving friend. "Oh how great is Thy 
goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that 
fear Thee ; which Thou hast wrought for them that 
trust in Thee before the sons of men." Say to 
Jesus, '' Set me as a seal upon Thine heart ; as a 
seal upon Thine arm ; for love is strong as death." 
" I sleep but my heart waketh." 




XXXIII. 

FEED MY LAMBS. 

**Lovest thou me? Feed my lambs." — John xxi. i6. 

" My sole possession is Thy love ; 
In earth beneath, or heaven above, 

I have no other store ; 
And though with fervent suit I pray, 
And importune Thee night and day, 

I ask Thee nothing more." 

THANKS for your kind note. I am indeed 
rejoiced to have been of any use to Mrs. M., 
and sorry not to have become acquainted with your 
little K. Nothing could mar such a visit. The 
throat difficulty was the most serious obstacle. But 
when God is about to confer some uncommon bless- 
ing He usually begins by reminding me that I have 
nothing, and am nothing. He has taken away my 
pen j that is, disabled the brain that used to employ 
it; and now, when I had just begun to think that a 
wide door was opening to me in lay-preaching, He 
has laid His hand upon my throat too. The infer- 
ence all past experience warrants me in drawing is, 
that He means to purify me, and in so doing greatly 
to enlarge my usefulness. So have I ever found it, 
and so will you. I have promised a friend to go 



FEED MY LAMBS, 235 

on Thursday, the State Fast, to Tewkesbury, and 
preach in the morning, and address the young 
people in the afternoon. He almost compelled me, 
in spite of my suspicion that I have not yet got 
back voice enough. But I have fallen in love with 
the work, and do not like to lose it, if I may be per- 
mitted to keep it. I am full of Father G.'s mind, 
that our Lord has given you a very great blessing, 
in giving you the care of those young people, and 
in giving you their love. Certainly He could give 
you no more sure token of His love than this. I 
have just had a call from a dear lamb whom the 
Good Shepherd intrusted to me in our country so- 
journ last summer. " Oh, how good He is ! " 

I finished Romans with my Tuesday class yester- 
day afternoon. That class has been larger of late ; 
from twenty to twenty-five. In the evening I took 
my friend D.'s class at his house, he being engaged 
to preach at Salem church. How good it is to have 
so many blessed opportunities ! My heart is made 
very glad by them. 

I am afraid you are over-working yourself, be- 
yond all reason, beyond all right. Faith is the an- 
tidote to a fevered anxious hurry, even to do good. 
Our dear Lord is most mercifully considerate of 
these frames of ours. He knows that they are but 
dust j and I am perfectly sure that we honor Him 
by refusing to be driven beyond our strength. 

I bless God that He enabled you to hear the ten- 
der whisper of our dear Lord Jesus at His table, 



236 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 



a r 



This is my body broken for you." Your, remark, 
" I don't know how to deal with happy Christians, 
so well as with troubled ones," greatly interests 
me. What a soul-satisfying comment this supplies ; 
and interpretation too, to your experiences hitherto. 
The happy Christians can more easily do without 
you. Your prayer was just right ; not a bit *^ too 
bold." I am sure the Good Shepherd prompted it, 
and that He will gloriously answer it. Do not fear 
to renew it, and press it as often a;s He suggests 
and inspires it, which will be as often as it comes 
to you. And the desolation with which you rose 
yesterday morning, probably, — I might say cer- 
tainly, — was the harbinger of the gift desired. 
Follow your impulses to believe wholly. Do not 
distrust them. There is no danger that you will 
believe too much, or that you will expect too much. 
Take this thought for your comfort : Every hour 
you struggle on, "faint yet pursuing," hungering 
for Jesus, yet not rebelling or murmuring because 
He keeps you waiting ; you give Him a treasure of 
loyal love far, far beyond the offerings of one who 
has no such aching insatiable void. " How pre- 
cious are thy thoughts unto me, O God j " thoughts 
of Thine absolutely perfect knowledge ; Psalm 
cxxxix. I, that Thou knowest my very thought; 
ver. 2, thoughts of Thy nearness ; ver. 3, and pro- 
tection, descending to the smallest details ; ver. 4, 
and steadying me with Thy hand ; ver. 5, filling me 
with ineffable peace in the joyful assurance of Thy 



FEED MY LAMBS. 



237 



presence ; ver. 6-12, thoughts of Thy foresight and 
painstaking; ver. 13-16, and Thy generous inten- 
tions in my behalf, namely, sure deliverance from 
the wicked, and the still more momentous deliver- 
ance from every thought and way not agreeable to 
Thy pure will. 




I 




XXXIV. 
HOPE. 

** How few from theif youthful day 
Look into what their life may be, 
Painting the visions of the way 

In colors soft, and bright, and free. 
How few who to such paths have brought 
The hopes and dreams of early thought I 
For God, through ways they have not known 
Will lead His own." 

I HAVE written N. a letter which perhaps her 
patience will not hold out to read. It has 
turned out to be the germ of a little thing entitled 
" Difficulties of Converts.'' 

I thought of you and prayed for you yesterday at 
the Lord's table. I have no doubt you had a prof- 
itable " Communion." I wish you could have been 
present on Friday evening in our chapel. Mr. D. 
was in the desk, and his text was, " The Master 
has come and calleth for thee." Quite a number 
stopped after the service for personal conversation. 
Your letter is a precious letter. I cannot thank 
our dear Lord enough for it. But you are only in 
the beginning of the feast, " Thou shalt see greater 
things than these." His precious word will open 
to you more and more ; and your love to Him 



HOPE, 239 

will expand like a flower in the sun. I send you 
my string of " Difficulties." Possibly you may 
recognize some of them. While I was finishing it, 
it occurred to me that some of H.'s might have 
been added. But I was thankful that the thought 
did not come sooner, for I had grappled with as 
many as I had strength for. Yesterday noon I was 
at Mr. D.'s for a moment j and asked him if he 
knew " Brothers and a Sermon," by Jean Ingelow ? 
He did not, but went to the book-case and got the 
volume. I told him to read it to his wife, and it 
would teach him new pathos in preaching. In the 
evening our seamstress went to the U. church to 
hear him. When she came home she told Mrs. K., 
she never heard a minister in all her life she liked 
so much ; and his text was, " Behold I stand at the 
door and knock." 

It was not to be supposed that the bitter enemy 
of God and man would see you slipping out of his 
cruel net, into the very peace of Jesus, and not 
make one more effort to entangle you. But comfort 
yourself with David's consolation, Psalm cxviii. 6, 
" The Lord is on my side ; I will not fear. What 
can man [or Satan] do unto me ? " You must needs 
have these ups and downs, until by patient waiting 
on the Lord you are established. And you know 
that " After you have suffered a while. He will es- 
tablish, strengthen, settle you." These sufferings 
are hard to bear ; but they are not therefore unprof- 
itable. On the contrary they are yielding the 



240 now TO SEE JESUS. 

peaceable fruits of righteousness ; developing in 
you graces not to be acquired in any other way, 
bringing you ever into closer sympathy and oneness 
of experience with our beloved Lord; as in He- 
brews V. 8, " Who learned obedience [in spirit ; 
that is, docility,] by the things which He suffered.'' 
A word about the old trouble, of not being able 
to find, or realize your Saviour, To have a vivid 
and continuous sense of His presence is very, very 
sweet and desirable ; but when we have not that, we 
still hold a power of immense worth ; the power, 
namely, to insist with ourselves, thus : Jesus is, 
however L may think or feel, or fail to feel. And 
He is all that I ever in my happiest moments be- 
lieved Him to be. He is not changed a particle 
by my fluctuations. He is true, tender, and con- 
stant still. Still, ' * I am my Beloved's ; and my 
Beloved is mine." " For whom have I in heaven 
but Thee ? and there is none upon earth whom I 
desire beside Thee." What if I do walk in a thick 
fog ? Thou, dear Jesus, art with me in the fog ; 
nay. Thyself hast brought the fog about me, that I 
may walk in it, hand in hand with Thee. Lead me 
where Thou wilt. Led by Thee I cannot go amiss. 
It is heaven to be with Thee, be it in deepest, 
densest fog, or elsewhere. I do not say that such 
resolves will always and at once lift us above the 
fog and the sorrow. But I do say, that such is the 
tendency ; and that they will surely contribute 
much towards it. Is it not obvious to you that such 



HOPE. 241 

is the design of these trystings ? Knowing the love 
of Jesus, can you doubt it ? To me it is not " hard 
to believe that just that utter desolation may be 
God's way of teaching us lessons of humility, faith, 
and dependence/' True while we are in that deso- 
lation it is hard to believe anything, except as we 
instantly throw all the force we can summon from 
will, and all we can get by asking, into a renewed 
act of giving ourselves to Jesus, and trusting in 
Him. Sometimes, as I go around the house, the 
last thing at night, to make all fast, in the multi- 
plicity of my thoughts I do my office mechanically, 
and cannot answer the question. Did I turn that 
lock or not ? Next time I give it a vigorous turn, 
and say to myself, " There, now I have locked that 
door, whether I can remember it or not." Can you 
take advantage of such an illustration, and give 
yourself to Jesus with such strength of decision, 
that you can add. There, now I have given myself 
all away to Him at any rate, let come what doubts 
may come. Have you never said to yourself in the 
midst of a hateful dream, in the slumbers of the 
night, " It is only a dream ; I will not heed it" I 
lately saw an excellent suggestion ; that " before 
going to sleep we firmly resolve, Now if I happen 
to have such a dream, I will remind myself that it 
is only a dream." I believe in such power of the 
will. You see the point ; will you not act upon it 
the next time the occasion offers ? Resolve never 
to give in to any temptation ; never to doubt that 
16 



242 



HOW TO SEE JESUS. 



whatever, comes is simply your Heavenly Father's 
discipline, and is sure to " work out for you a far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.". 

Rest in the deep conviction, that the course of 
education chosen for us by the Holy Spirit, is not 
only safe, but infinitely more profitable than any 
course our self-sparing might incline us to ; even if 
we had the wisdom with which to choose. And so 
we will pray for strength to endure ; for "Behold 
we count them happy which endure.'' 





XXXV. 



COMING VICTORY. 



" I 've wrestled on toward heaven, 

'Gainst storm and wind and tide; 
Now Kke a weary traveler 

That leaneth on his guide, 
Amid the shades of evening, 

While sinks life's lingering sand, 
I hail the glory dawning 

From Immanuel's land.'* 

ABOUT "regular employments for different 
hours j " your desire to make the most and 
the best of life, will prompt you to try many exper- 
iments. Many of them will not work; but the en- 
deavor will do you good, provided you do not over- 
tax your strength. In 1833 I mapped out the day 
in hours and half hours, and tried to assign its ap- 
propriate work to each section of the day and hour. 
No doubt the endeavor had its uses ; but the thing 
could not be sustained for any length of time ; not 
even then, when I had much more than now the 
control of time and opportunities. As for "igno- 
rance," it is just the same with me, I presume each 
of us finds abundant reason to believe that no one 
else can be so ignorant. But trying, despite the 
acknowledged ignorance, to do what we can, is a 



244 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

blessed privilege, and a most valuable discipline. I 
do not think I should wish to have less conscious- 
ness of ignorance, whatever might be my actual ac- 
quisitions ; it is so safe, and so true, the realization 
that " I 'm a poor sinner and nothing at all." We 
will travel on hand in hand, conscious of innumer- 
able short-comings "in minor matters," and in 
larger matters j so walking humbly with our Lord ; 
but all the more sturdily clinging to His assurance 
that " if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just 
to forgive us our sins^ and to cleanse us from all 
unrighteousness." 

" What shall I say of a person who tried to pray 
in the morning, and was so impressed with the idea 
that she was mocking God, that she gave it up ; and 
then tried again ; and then again, four or five 
times ? " I should say to her : Poor soul ! see here 
a verification of Bunyan's fidelity to the facts of 
Christian experience ! Satan trying to quench the 
heavenly fire ; and behind the wall the Holy One 
pouring on oil. I would say, Beloved, have faith 
in the Holy One. They that are with thee are more 
than all they that are against thee. I have a mes- 
sage for thee from the Master : " Fear not little 
one j it is your Father's good pleasure to give you 
the kingdom. Satan hath desired to have thee, 
that he may sift thee as wheat ; but I have prayed 
for thee, that thy faith fail not. Be not anxiously 
fearful; I have conquered Satan, I myself was 
tempted by him, therefore I permit thee to be thus 



COMING VICTORY. 245 

tempted, in token of my special love. I permit you 
to drink of my cup, that your fellowship with me 
may be the more intimate. Tell me, my child, if 
you can. What could I do for you that I have not 
done, to assure you of my quenchless love ? Be 
not faithless ; but trust me despite all appearances. 
I am but testing thy faith, and illustrating the 
power of even such a little one as thou art, to over- 
come, through the grace of God which is in thee, to 
make all men see what is the fellowship of the mys- 
tery, — the mysterious and wonderful fellowship, — 
which from the beginning of the world hath been 
hid in God ; to the intent that now unto the princi- 
palities and powers in heavenly places might be 
known by the Church, of which you are a part, 
the manifold wisdom of God; the love tooj the 
inexhaustible riches of love, from which nothing 
can separate you." 





XXXVI. 



PEACE. 

" For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed ; but my kind- 
ness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace 
be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." — Is. liv. lo. 

" How sweetly parts the Christian's sun, 
Just like the summer monarch set, 
'Midst cloudless skies his journey done, 

To rise in brighter regions yet. 
Oh where the Christian ends his days, 

Lingers a lovely line of rays. 
That speaks his calm departure blest, 

And promises to those who gaze. 
The same beatitude of rest." 

IT may be that some one of our Lord's little ones 
having read this record of a hungry child, — so 
she often called herself, — will be wishing to ask 
me, Were your expectations realized ? Did she 
ever attain the experience she thirsted for ? 

You shall hear. As I have already indicated, 
she was one of the Lord's good shepherds. Not 
long before she was called to her heavenly home 
she wrote the following letter to a timid believer, 
who had been long an invalid. Not having strength 
to write another, she desired a friend to make a 
copy of this and ask me to accept it as though 
written to me, that I might know her state. 



PEACE. 247 

" My dear Friend : For many weeks I have 
been waiting to feel strong enough to write you. I 
have thought a great deal of you, and very ten- 
derly, and have been longing to be permitted to 
lead you into the quiet rest which the Lord has 
given to me. 

" Now do not be surprised to hear me say this, and 
begin at once to say that I have received some new 
light, or come into some marvelous experience, and 
that I have left you far behind. Not a bit of it ; 
but I think I do know more of what trusting in 
God means, than I used to know. When my kind 
doctor first told me that I had a fatal disease upon 
me, and that I must at once drop everything, and 
care first of all for my health, in that same hour I 
believe I did ^ drop everything,* spiritual burdens 
as well as temporal. I had been tugging away at 
myself for months and years, trying to grow better ; 
trying, I rather think, to make myself of some ac- 
count in God's sight. I was always looking for- 
ward to the time when I should be more prayerful, 
more diligent, more consecrated, and then God 
would be pleased with me, and I would hope T was 
His child. There it was, you see, just nothing but 
self-righteousness after all. But my doctor's words 
made me feel that I carried about a volcano that 
might at any moment end my earthly existence. In 
one little hour I was brought face to face with the 
fact that my doing, of whatever sort, was nearly 
ended; and that I might have no more time in 



248 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

which to finish my work in this world, or to get 
ready for another. 

" I was not alarmed or troubled, though greatly 
surprised. But my first thought was, * Well I am 
in the Lord's hands, and I know it now/ And 
my next, the prayer, ^ Lord take me ; I give myself 
to Thee just as I am. I can do nothing more to 
make myself better ; I can never be more fit to 
come to Thee than in this moment.\ And I think 
the Lord must have heard that prayer. No rustle 
of angelic wings stirred the air. No visible revela- 
tion appeared to me. No deep joy flowing into my 
soul, made me feel that my prayer was accepted, 
and that I was just taken up into the Good Shep- 
herd's arms. But very quietly and calmly, without 
a wish to have anything different, I sat that long 
Sabbath afternoon, and talked with a dear friend of 
the message the Lord had sent me. How strange 
it all was ; in the morning, not feeling strong, to 
be sure, but with no suspicion that anything ailed 
me beyond a temporary weakness ; in the afternoon 
sitting already by the bank of the river that sepa- 
rates us from our heavenly home. Well, the quiet 
calmness that came to me in that hour, my Lord's 
own gift to me, has never left me. ' It is the 
Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.' 
I have no fears for the future, so far as my sickness 
is concerned ; nor any wish that I know of, as to 
the length of my stay here. This you know can- 
not be any human experience ; for I have much to 



PEACE. 249 

make life pleasant to me. Nor have I a longing 
desire to depart. All that I put into the Lord's 
hands once for all. And He has given me grace 
to leave it there. Jesus is not any more real to 
me than He was before. I don't feel that I love 
Him better, or am nearer to Him. I should be glad 
to do so j but I don't fight any longer because I 
cannot do this. I find I can trust if things are not 
as I think they ought to be ; or as I wish they 
were. And I think this is what God wants of me 
more than anything else. So I have stopped trying 
to grow better, and have left myself in His hands 
to be saved like any other poor sinner. And all I 
have to do is, just to take the blessings He sends 
day by day, and they are innumerable, and en- 
joy them as His gifts, and wait quietly till He 
takes me out of this lower school and puts me into 
a higher class in the heavenly home, where I shall 
learn to love Him as I ought. 

" I have written this because it seems to me as 
though it might help you a little. Friends have 
told you, I suppose, a hundred times, to just give 
up all your own efforts and trust in Christ, whether 
you felt or saw anything or not. I can only repeat 
that same lesson. You will never be any more fit 
to trust, than you are to-day. Suppose you knew 
your life would end this week; would not your 
instinctive feeling be, 'I can only trust in the 
Lord ? ' Well, if you can only rest on Him in like 
manner now, He will in time make known to you 



250 now TO SEE JESUS. 

that you are His. Do you suppose any enemy of 
God was ever distressed as you are because God 
was not more real ? Never ! I wish I could tell 
you some of the sweet thoughts I have had about 
Jesus visiting the sick when He was upon earth. 
Have you noticed how much the gospel says 
about it ? And I have thought, if He came to me 
and healed me, I should want to take Him right to 
your room and ask Him to heal you. Some day 
He will. I am as sure of it as I am that it is He 
who makes me cheerful and happy every day. Can 
you not trust Him, dear, and wait His time 1 
They tell me that I am an entirely different person 
since my illness ; and I think it is true. It is the 
Lord's doing. Earthly cares laid aside in a great 
measure, spiritual burdens dropped at His feet 
who bids us " let not our hearts be troubled," — I 
have been quietly waiting through sunshine and 
shadow for the coming of His messenger. I have 
enjoyed much this winter. I have no wonderful 
experiences, no ecstasies, no new views of Christ 
and His love. I love to live. And God has 
lavished such countless blessings of every descrip- 
tion upon me in these months of my decline, that 
it has been a perpetual joy to recount them to my- 
self and to those about me. The future seems so 
full of awe and majesty as to bewilder me ; so I 
do not think much about it ; but go trusting along 
from day to day with a glad heart, knowing that 
my God will not fail me when the time of trial 



PEACE, 251 

comes. I have not attained what I have struggled 
for so many years j but I am one of the Lord's 
little ones, I hope ; and He keeps me so quiet! It 
sometimes almost seems to me as if I had begun 
to live in a little piece of heaven already." 

To another friend she wrote : " I went to church 
last Monday afternoon and sat in my own seat for 
the first time since I returned from E. Perhaps 
you would hardly have known me with my gay pur- 
ple wrapper, my S . . . . shawl and little black 
velvet bonnet with white velvet flowers. I was 
told that some ^ one had said, ^^ How pretty Mrs. G. 
looked to-day." ' I 'm glad of it, if I did, I said, for 
I tried my best to do so. It would be very foolish 
to tell you this, were it not that I had this thought 
in my heart ; I wanted to lay off my mourning, and 
everything that looked gloomy; so that if the peo- 
ple never saw me again, their last memory of me 
should be a bright and cheerful one ; and this not 
for my own sake either, but because God has done 
so much for me, and I want everybody to think 
pleasant thoughts of Him, every time they look at 
or think of me. It seems as if I had dishonored 
Him so much by being gloomy in the past, that 
now I want to make up for it in every way I can. 
I shall never forget your parlor, dear J., and the 
spot where I sat on that memorable August 15th. I 
did not know then what I now see plainly, that the 
Lord Himself was there also ; that He took my hand 
that day as it were with a new and firmer grasp ; 



252 HOW TO SEE JESUS. 

and He has never let it go since. I have felt from 
that very hour a rest that I did not have before , 
and I think now it is because I saw plainly then 
that I had no more time to make myself better ; 
and so I gave myself just as I was, then and there 
once for all. I had always been a good deal more 
anxious to grow better than I had been to trust in 
God. It is a great deal easier to let the Lord save 
me, than to try to save myself. So I am happy 
every day. Not because I am so much better than 
I used to be. But I do trust more ; and as to the 
sins, and neglects, omissions, etc., that used to 
weigh me down so, why the blood of Christ cleans- 
eth from all sin ; and since the Lord has under- 
taken the work, why not let Him do the whole of 
it, as well as a part ? So every time Satan, or my 
conscience, says. You sin in this way ; or you 
sinned so and so j I say, I know it ; there 's no 
denying that ; but ^ His blood cleanseth from all 
sin.' That little word all is such a comfort to me ! " 
One of our poets has said, " Love hath eyes.'^ 
The First Commandment warrants and defends 
this utterance. To love Jesus with all the heart, 
soul, mind, and strength is to see Him. As is our 
love so must be the vision. 



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